The Serious Side - part 2

party animal - not! wrote:Stunningly bad news..............

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/24/journalists-charged-felonies-trump-inauguration-unrest?CMP=share_btn_tw

Just to follow up on this story Washington Post had an article today on the mass arrests that took place on Inauguration Day.  As of last Friday charges against nine people, including four journalists who they say were "....swept up as they reported on the protests" had been dropped.  A bit of good news for the media.

Donnamarie wrote:Kellyanne is genius at talking the talk.  Got to give her cred as pathetic as it is.  The media has to be on their toes when they interview her.  She will twist the facts so fast ...

 She's the one who invented the bowling green massacre? His staff are all so fucking inept, it's hard to keep track. There was an interview with Milo thingy on Channel Four the other night where he couldn't even keep track of what he was supposed to support.

Some  more tweets from the 'RealDonaldTrump':

'The judge opens up our country to potential terrorists and others that do not have our best interests at heart. Bad people are very happy!'
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/828042506851934209

'Because the ban was lifted by a judge, many bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country.  A terrible decision'
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/827996357252243456

'Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!'
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/828342202174668800

I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are  making the job very difficult!'
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/828343072840900610

I'd say he doesn't  understand delegative democracy. Maybe somebody should explain it to him.
And I bet he's just waiting for any sort of attack committed by any sort of immigrant. Because that would give him a reason to sign away a decret about courts and judges being not allowed to veto his decrets.
As far as I know, people who  want to enter the States, are already checked very carefully, and I'm pretty sure that Homeland Security is already involved in that. So either he doesn't  trust his own authorities, or it's just populism (what I think it is).
IMO the most dangerous persons are him and his cabinet...

That is exactly what it is. The fear factor.

Over 13,000 American people were killed in America, and over 26,000 injured in 2015 - by Americans with guns - according to the official figures.

Will he sort that out? Nope. The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby sponsor far too many senators and congressmen - and they are overwhelmingly Republican.

The USA is part of the Five Eyes - a group of countries who lead the world in intelligence and security issues, and advise and support many others/ He will have been briefed on all of that........and much more

He was briefed but of course wouldn't listen. He and his crew know better than people who have been doing these jobs for years. His ego is his biggest problem and will be his downfall.

He will blame the judges if something happens that is how narrow minded he is . A petulant child when he can't have his way blame someone else and they are wrong.

......wonder if he knows that Daesh/ISIS are Sunni.....

https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/828328046000271362

https://twitter.com/LivingBlueinRed/status/825440885009743874

So true

Oh wait it really is.

party animal - not! wrote:That is exactly what it is. The fear factor.

Over 13,000 American people were killed in America, and over 26,000 injured in 2015 - by Americans with guns - according to the official figures.

Will he sort that out? Nope. The National Rifle Association and the gun lobby sponsor far too many senators and congressmen - and they are overwhelmingly Republican.

The USA is part of the Five Eyes - a group of countries who lead the world in intelligence and security issues, and advise and support many others/ He will have been briefed on all of that........and much more

PA ,
we see the same in Germany:
We had two terror attacks with nine people being killed and several injured last year. Also several attacks to refugees and also refugee shelters where also several people were injured and also killed. One gun rampage where a young man in Munich shot nine kids, mostly  immigrants, at a McDonalds  restaurant. He called himself a nazi and also an admirer of Anders Breivik - he was also born to Iranian parents. Strange, isn't  it? We also had the sexual assaults / thefts on New Year in Cologne and several other cities and one refugee who raped and killed a woman.

So when you read some comments,  you get the impression that we're fighting a civil war, are surrounded by enemies everywhere. Which is just not true. When the first refugee shelter in my area opened in summer 2015, there were lots of fears by the residents about crimes, but the worst thing which was to be mentioned was that it was busier in town and that the park was used by them as well (and why shouldn't they  go to the park instead of sitting in a crowded accomodation).

Also in 2016 - just to put it into perspective -nearly 10,000 people in Germany were killed in accidents in the household, about 3,500 were killed in car accidents and more than 250 drowned in public swimming pools and rivers. Nobody talks about stopping people from driving their cars, going swimming or doing the household. And nobody talks about the thousands of women who were raped by Germans and tge hundreds who were raped and killed by them.

Last weekend six young people were having a party in a hut and were killed by carbonic oxide gas because they used a heater which you can't use indoors. Some years ago a pilote committed suicide by crashing his plane with hundreds on board. It's still rumored that the missing MH 370 was used to commit suicide. Over the last years, a right-wing terror group killed several immigrants,  and our police always said that they must have sold drugs or have committed other crimes. Until they killed a policeman, and they found out that all these crimes  were  committed by just two men.

Of course it would be phantastic if these people were still alive, but people like Trump and Erdogan worry me much more than the slight possibility of a terrorist attack in my area.

NRA has been powerful long before President Trump, @annemarie/donnamarie/carolhathaway-marie
Maybe a Constitutional Amendment is needed to redefine rights.

Btw, you do come across as the same person. A PR shill with a determination to spin an agenda. But that makes it so obvious. Same tone in every post, despite side story of Germany residency in one of your sockpuppets. Or multiple log-ins. A reader would have to be so daft to not see how obvious you are... Or all 3 of you. LOL
And the frantically posting party animal not!
That's a deperately spinning PR rep, if ever you could spot one... LOL 24/7.
Too transparent...

No one knows what happened to MH370. Except maybe intel. Some say remote hackers took over... Other conspiracy is of suicidal terrorist pilot wanting to crash it over Diego Garcia.
When Maldives residents showed mobile photos & gave accounts of low flying plane that may have been it, they were refuted... Who knows.
But satellite technology could find it...

Anyway, Islamist fundamentalist threat is huge. Louvre in Paris a couple of days ago..

President Trump is delivering what he promised in election. Security. & Supreme Court will back him.

We will see what the Supreme court decides.

Refugee


Why?


Take a look

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1904/

-attention: hard pics

Father stares at the hand and foot of his five-year-old, severed as a punishment for failing to make the daily rubber quota, Belgian Congo, 1904

A Congolese man looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia.
The photograph is by Alice Seeley Harris, the man’s name is Nsala. Here is part of her account (from the book “Don’t Call Me Lady: The Journey of Lady Alice Seeley Harris”): He hadn’t made his rubber quota for the day so the Belgian-appointed overseers had cut off his daughter’s hand and foot. Her name was Boali. She was five years old. Then they killed her. But they weren’t finished. Then they killed his wife too. And because that didn’t seem quite cruel enough, quite strong enough to make their case, they cannibalized both Boali and her mother. And they presented Nsala with the tokens, the leftovers from the once living body of his darling child whom he so loved. His life was destroyed. They had partially destroyed it anyway by forcing his servitude but this act finished it for him. All of this filth had occurred because one man, one man who lived thousands of miles across the sea, one man who couldn’t get rich enough, had decreed that this land was his and that these people should serve his own greed. Leopold had not given any thought to the idea that these African children, these men and women, were our fully human brothers, created equally by the same Hand that had created his own lineage of European Royalty.

The Congo Free State was a corporate state in Central Africa privately owned by King Leopold II of Belgium founded and recognized by the Berlin Conference of 1885. In the 23 years (1885-1908) Leopold II ruled the Congo he massacred 10 million Africans by cutting off their hands and genitals, flogging them to death, starving them into forced labour, holding children ransom and burning villages. The ironic part of this story is that Leopold II committed these atrocities by not even setting foot in the Congo. Under Leopold II’s administration, the Congo Free State became one of the greatest international scandals of the early 20th century.
The ABIR Congo Company (founded as the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company and later known as the Compagnie du Congo Belge) was the company appointed to exploit natural rubber in the Congo Free State. ABIR enjoyed a boom through the late 1890s, by selling a kilogram of rubber in Europe for up to 10 fr which had cost them just 1.35 fr. However, this came at a cost to the human rights of those who couldn’t pay the tax with imprisonment, flogging and other corporal punishment recorded.

British missionaries with men holding hands severed from victims Bolenge and Lingomo by ABIR militiamen, 1904.
Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. Meanwhile, the Force Publique (the gendarmerie / military force) were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions (imported from Europe at considerable cost) for hunting. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in chopped-off hands. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighboring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were too unrealistic to fill.
A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez, who ran a district along the river 500 kilometres (300 mi) north of Stanley Pool: All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator…From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets…A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean. As a young man, I saw [Fiévez’s] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river…Rubber causes these torments; that’s why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters.
One junior European officer described a raid to punish a village that had protested. The European officer in command “ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades… and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross”. After seeing a Congolese person killed for the first time, a Danish missionary wrote: “The soldier said ‘Don’t take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don’t bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service”.
In Forbath’s words: The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State…. The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber… They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace… the people who were demanded for the forced labor gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.

Leopold used a private mercenary force, Force Publique (FP), to do his terrorizing and killing. White Officers commanded black soldiers many of whom were cannibals from tribes in the upper Congo.
In theory, each right hand proved a killing. In practice, soldiers sometimes “cheated” by simply cutting off the hand and leaving the victim to live or die. More than a few survivors later said that they had lived through a massacre by acting dead, not moving even when their hands were severed, and waiting till the soldiers left before seeking help. In some instances a soldier could shorten his service term by bringing more hands than the other soldiers, which led to widespread mutilations and dismemberment.
A reduction of the population of the Congo is noted by all who have compared the country at the beginning of Leopold’s control with the beginning of Belgian state rule in 1908, but estimates of the death toll vary considerably. Estimates of contemporary observers suggest that the population decreased by half during this period and these are supported by some modern scholars such as Jan Vansina. Others dispute this. Scholars at the Royal Museum for Central Africa argue that a decrease of 15 percent over the first forty years of colonial rule (up to the census of 1924).

We ban Daesh

Obviously




But what about
Crusades? 

stop
STOP STOP STOP

Reverse
I  dumbtrump

He made a FAB MARVELLOUS THING !!!


All reading news will know

HOW MANY
AND HOW IMPORTANT IMMIGRANTS LIVE AND WORK IN AMERICA 

All those ppl scared to lost them make us a great gift 

 SPLENDIDO !!!  (Budwiser & Corona   )

No

Another bad news


http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38859851

Scientists are calling for urgent action to halt the spread of a pest that is destroying maize crops and spreading rapidly across Africa.




The fall armyworm poses a major threat to food security and agricultural trade, warns the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (Cabi).
It says farmers' livelihoods are at risk as the non-native insect threatens to reach Asia and the Mediterranean.
The Food and Agriculture Organization plans emergency talks on the issue. 
The fall armyworm, so called because it eats its way through most of the vegetation in its way as it marches through crops, is native to North and South America but was identified for the first time in Africa last year.
Cabi chief scientist Dr Matthew Cock said: "This invasive species is now a serious pest spreading quickly in tropical Africa and with the potential to spread to Asia.

More at the link

It's me,
thank you very much for these four posts!

The two ads are really appealing to me. I don't speak much Spanish so didn't  get everything in the Corona ad, but the message is obvious: America isn't  just one country but a whole continents with an unbelievable treasure of people, culture and nature. When one country bans nearly all the others, that's  simply wrong!

And the history of colonization is something most Europeans don't really want to know anything about. Many European countries had several colonies overseas: Spain, Portugal. France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany (which joined this race when nearly all territories had been spared).
It started with the conquerers and their kings who wanted their resources like gold, jewels, spices - and people. And the catholic church supported them by declaring every non-christian as a sub-human being who needs to be christianized which led to the destruction of their culture.

Why do all countries in Latin and South America have Spanish as their main language (well, except for Brazil where it's Portugues)? Because they were led by Spain and Brazil for centuries. Why is the first language in West Africa French and in East Africa it's English? Because they were occupied and robbed by European countries like France and Britain.
Want to see a map of Sfrica during the colonialism?

http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/World_1898_empires_colonies_territory.png/440px-World_1898_empires_colonies_territory.png&imgrefurl=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolonialismus&h=176&w=440&tbnid=CMrzzYo3VV0lbM:&vet=1&q=Kolonialm%C3%A4chte+karte&tbnh=140&tbnw=350&docid=B4ecOfeM99ua6M&usg=__B47c0ZXO-hPwsDfTCdhlRBU1jTM=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjg86ystPzRAhVPnRQKHfl4AvQQ9QEIKjAC

And if you call the native sub-human beings, they won't feel like we do, will they? So it doesn't  matter if you kill this man's wife and daughter just because he didn't work hard enough. He can marry again and produce new children...

I remember  that Dutch friends of my grandparents told me about problems with people from the Moluccas who  lived in ghettos in the Netherlands. They got the right to live in this country after the Netherlands  had ripped of the resources of their country  for centuries. (Did you know, by the way, that Shell is mostly owned by the Dutch government and the royal family who's  one of the richest families in Europe? And how much oil, do you guess, can you get in West Europe itself? There's hardly any, some in the North Sea, but they got their wealth from their  territories, as you can imagine). They went to live in the Netherlands but still weren't treated as equals (because it becomes manifest when you have believed for centuries that you're better than they are and since they didn't  proove (actually weren't able to proove) that they could do as good as the Dutch, they couldn't be as intelligente as them and were only able to get simple jobs, leading to poverty, leading to the growing-up of their children in poverty, leading to low education (especially since you normally don't have good schools in ghettos) leading to learning very early that you'll never get a chance leading to resignation and aggression leading to the knowing that the only career you can make is as a criminal. The neverending circle, I guess we all know about that.

The same ghettos  exist in France and Belgium (remember the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels? They weren't  committed by refugees but by second-or third-generation immigrants who are a sitting duck for ISIS). So bombing them may be a first step, but if we don't improve their living conditions and don't start treating them as equal, there will always be a terror group who finds people since they are able to make a bogeyman out of us, it won't stop.

You are right !!!!
Very well written post

What's this sensationalist exaggeration?   

Nothing about banning immigration. It's a security issue vetting for terrorism.  

The President's mother was born in Scotland & migrated to America finding work as domestic servant. 
His father was born in USA to German immigrants who prospered in real estate…
1st & 3rd wife are immigrants. 
Part of the American dream. Opportunity to rise. 

This is not about banning immigrants… Twisting with fake news, hmmm? 
Ineffective.  Like a failed globalist open borders agenda.  Or spite. 

As for the Belgian Congo torture for rubber quota.  It's heart-wrenching horrific but conducted by the cannibalistic tribes north of the Congo during era of Imperialism exploitation. 
This was early 20th century.  Brutal force & torture. 
Congo drastically changed & the nation was independent by 1950s.  

Hopefully, humans are evolving to a higher level of existence, phasing out instincts of torture & hatred. Gaining knowledge. 

And, 
what about the Crusades????  
They sought to save the Holy Land.   
How about the Ottomans slaughter of Christians in Europe starting in 14th century…

Btw, statistics show economic growth & lower unemployment rate during month of January
Great start Mr President…

Carolhathaway -You're right. The Europeans and Americans have taken advantage of many other countries but sadly they're hardly the first or the only ones to do so. There's not a country on earth that hasn't at one time or another mistreated some group for political, religious or financial reasons.  The Aztecs and Incas, Hannibal, Attila the Hun, the early Egyptians, the Vikings, pretty much everyone mentioned in the Bible...even now groups all over Africa are fighting each other over resources, rulers in the Middle East keep all the wealth for themselves while their people live in poverty... Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine... I could go on.

I think there's something fundamentally wrong with the human race. Somewhere along the line a lot of us have lost the genes for compassion and cooperation.

Did they lose the gene or did they never have it to begin with?

We seem to be living in a time when everything is me and what I want.

I guess and fear
It's written into our DNA
As they say


Istinto di conservazione

English  dunno

It's a survive instinct

Mors tua vita mea
The primary needings


Dunno how to say
But it's a force really hard to win

But

The further we get 
The better we would behave
About empathy and compassion 

But hard life doesn't help

So the thing is perpetuated

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/eric-trumps-trip-to-uruguay-cost-taxpayers-97830-in-hotel-bills/2017/02/03/ababd64e-e95c-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html?utm_term=.ea21822a5ffd


Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 in hotel bills
Eric Trump and members of his entourage walk outside La Huella, a beachfront restaurant, during a private business trip in early January to Punta del Este, Uruguay. (Cristian Cordoba)
When the president-elect’s son Eric Trump jetted to Uruguay in early January for a Trump Organization promotional trip, U.S. taxpayers were left footing a bill of nearly $100,000 in hotel rooms for Secret Service and embassy staff.
It was a high-profile jaunt out of the country for Eric, the fresh-faced executive of the Trump Organization who, like his father, pledged to keep the company separate from the presidency. Eric mingled with real estate brokers, dined at an open-air beachfront eatery and spoke to hundreds at an “ultra exclusive” Trump Tower Punta del Este evening party celebrating his visit.
The Uruguayan trip shows how the government is unavoidably entangled with the Trump company as a result of the president’s refusal to divest his ownership stake. In this case, government agencies are forced to pay to support business operations that ultimately help to enrich the president himself. Though the Trumps have pledged a division of business and government, they will nevertheless depend on the publicly funded protection granted to the first family as they travel the globe promoting their brand.
[An early test of Trump’s ethics pledge is a glittering new foreign tower]
A spokeswoman for Eric Trump declined to make him available for an interview and did not provide answers to a list of detailed questions about the trip.
Eric Trump’s trip in early January to the coastal resort town appeared to be brief — perhaps as short as two nights, according to a review of local press clips and social media.
The bill for the Secret Service’s hotel rooms in Uruguay totaled $88,320. The U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, paid an additional $9,510 for its staff to stay in hotel rooms to “support” the Secret Service detail for the “VIP visit,” according to purchasing orders reviewed by The Washington Post.
Eric Trump and members of his entourage walk outside La Huella, a beachfront restaurant, during a private business trip in early January to Punta del Este, Uruguay. (Cristian Cordoba)
“This is an example of the blurring of the line between the personal interest in the family business and the government,” said Kathleen Clark, an expert on government ethics and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
Despite the use of public funds, government agencies would not provide key details connected to the trip, including the duration of the stay, the name of the hotel or the number of booked rooms. A spokesman from the Secret Service, citing security concerns, declined to comment.
The money for the hotel rooms was paid through the State Department, but a spokesman there declined to comment on the trip. He instead referred reporters to the White House and back to the Secret Service, whose spokesman once again declined to comment. The White House also did not respond to requests for comment.
“There is a public benefit to providing Secret Service protection,” Clark said. “But what was the public benefit from State Department personnel participating in this private business trip to the coastal town? It raises the specter of the use of public resources for private gain.”
Immediate family members of presidents have for decades been guaranteed taxpayer-funded safeguards, and their safety is paramount to national security, especially as they travel to foreign and potentially dangerous hot spots.
In 1917, Congress first authorized the then-Secret Service Division of the U.S. Treasury Department to protect the immediate family of the president. In 1984, a statute extended that protection for other key individuals, including the immediate family of the vice president.
Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton even authorized Secret Service protection for their adult daughters for an unspecified period of time after the presidents left office.



(It continues
In the link page)

It's me,
again a very interesting article.
One thought just came to my mind:
The Trumps decided that Melania and their son will stay in New York at least until the school year's end. What do you think will the extra costs for their security be until summer?

Here is an article i found on the price.

http://ijr.com/wildfire/2016/11/743403-two-million-dollars-a-day-to-protect-trump-and-his-family-but-its-about-to-get-a-lot-more-expensive/

Better ppl know

As far as Donald Jr.'s trip to Uruguay I have no problem with secret service protection and the costs involved.   I have a problem with the intent of the trip and if there is a personal business gain to be made for the Trump organization.  A possible conflict of interest.  The Trumps continue to show no deference for the rule of law.

I wonder if Melania will end up moving to the White House.  I don't get the sense (from the pictures of them together) that there is much love there.  Maybe the excuse will be made that Melania wants to stay in New York so Barron can finish out his school years at home and out of the limelight.

Donnamarie - If the Secret Service protection was the only cost I'd have no problem with this, but this was a business trip and as such all other costs should be picked up by the Trumps - just like they should be paying for the additional security (police protection) at Trump Tower here in NYC. He's always trumpeting how rich he is - let him put his wallet where his mouth is! Or maybe he isn't s rich as he wants us to think he is. Tax returns, anyone?

I agree Lizzy he should pay the expenses for the business trip not the tax payers.

And I don't believe he is any where as rich as he claims , I think he probably is a multimillionaire but no billionaire those days are long gone. It would be great to see his tax returns maybe if the press call him a mere millionaire he'll get so pissed he will show them. We all know his ego couldn't take that.

Donnamarie I see the same thing you see they don't seem to be interested in each other. I don't think she ever wanted to be first lady, and still doesn't. 

Ivanka on the other hand is loving the attention. So I guess she will fulfill the role of Trump's first lady , I'm guessing Melania will have to go on State visits and such but not have to do too much in Washington.

Absolutely agree on the business trip argument.  That is the problem with Trump not divesting.  Every business trip any Trump family member takes anywhere where taxpayer money covers the costs will always be questioned as a business conflict.  How will we know if the Trump enterprise is profiting from the trip in some way.  The American people should not be lining the pockets of the Trumpster off our backs.

BTW Betsy DeVos just got confirmed.  I knew she would but nonetheless she is a total farce to represent the Education Department.  What will we do 

Donnamarie wrote:
BTW Betsy DeVos just got confirmed.  I knew she would but nonetheless she is a total farce to represent the Education Department.  What will we do 

Donna,
the more uneducated children are - because the school system fails and the parents aren't able to teach them to think, to wage, to discuss and to make up their own opinion - the easier it gets for populists and extremists to polarize and to split the society.

If anybody's interested in a German article about Trump:

http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-1133520.html

The cover is quite good IMO.

My heart goes out to Melania. That poor woman. There's not enough money in the world, not enough luxury homes, designer clothes or celebrity status to make marriage to that pig worth it. She looks completely miserable and he looks like he's shopping for his next wife. Too bad Ivanka is already married.

Re: DeVos - Even the Republicans knew better. Those who voted for her confirmation are either stupider than mud (doubtful) or scares sh**less of Trump - or maybe they're invested in charter schools. If the Dems are smart they'll put on a big push to let Republican voters know which of their Congressmen caved, because anyone who has a child in public school (98% of US students) will be affected by this twit - and not in a good way.

I'd like to know who in Congress is financially invested in charter/private education and who (if anyone) has their own children in public school. Maybe those should be the only ones allowed to vote for Ed Secty.

Carolhathaway - The Der Spiegel article is spot on, but it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. The problem we face is how to get rid of this cretin without starting an actual armed revolution. The resistance isn't waning, it is taking new forms - and it is spreading to people who actually supported him but now see that we can't afford to let him go on the way he is.

My personal hope is that he takes his family, his cabinet and all his followers on an all-expenses-paid vacation and they vanish into the Bermuda Triangle never to be seen or heard from again.

Thanks for the article Carol it was very good and very true.

Lizzy,
I know that the article  doesn't  tell us anything new. Just wanted to show you one of our news coverage. And since we have tons of them (I guess as many as you have).
I think that there's so much coverage to warn the people ahead of our upcoming election in September. 

In France, Marine LePen announced the election plank for the Front National, the French right-wing  party, for their upcoming election:
France first
Frexit
Out of the NATO
Building walls
Punity tariff for products from other countries
Get rid of everybody who's not French
...

Does that sound any familiar to you?

I just checked the news and saw that DeVos was was confirmed because VP Pence used an extra voice because there was a standoff in congress - something which had never been done before.

About Melania:
To me she looks completely overextended and frightened.
As much as I know, Trump isn't  any different than years and decades ago. So I assume she knew what she'd get. But there is a slight between being a businessman's wife and being the First Lady...

We know he wouldn't listen if she said no she didn't want him to run. Now she can say oh my son needs to stay in New York for school.

She was probably happy being a lady who lunched , now more is expected of her than just looking pretty. She needs to bring something to the first lady role that  is other than stealing other people's speeches.

Have you read tgat?

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/melania-trumps-lawyers-admit-she-hoped-to-cash-in-on-being-first-lady-by-selling-clothes-and-fragrances/

It's sad, really, because she didn't know, and no one seems to have told her that she wouldn't be able to do it anyway as the wife of the President.

In which case, the law suit presumably becomes irrelavent

PAN,
I can't imagine that she didn't  know she wouldn't  be able to run her own business as FLOTUS, especially  to start a business based on the fact that she's married to the president. She can't  be that naive.
I think she needed an evidence that this DM article ruined her chances to make $150 millions.

carolhathaway wrote:

Donnamarie wrote:
BTW Betsy DeVos just got confirmed.  I knew she would but nonetheless she is a total farce to represent the Education Department.  What will we do 

Donna,
the more uneducated children are - because the school system fails and the parents aren't able to teach them to think, to wage, to discuss and to make up their own opinion - the easier it gets for populists and extremists to polarize and to split the society.

If anybody's interested in a German article about Trump:

http://m.spiegel.de/international/world/a-1133520.html

The cover is quite good IMO.

carol, thanks for the link.  It was spot on and it was interesting to read a European perspective on our dilemma.  The cover is outrageous and grotesque.  And it's perfect for evoking the feeling so many of us here in the states have about what's happening to our country.

I'm hoping that the writer's view that we here will become complacent will not be the case.  There is still a lot of uproar and discontent here.  There are lots of protests taking place in congressional districts across the country from constituents who are unhappy with their congressional representatives for their votes on Cabinet appointees or the Affordable Care Act, etc.  And if the courts decide to reinstate the ban on Muslims people will be incensed and head back to the streets and the airports. 

 I don't think our country has ever experienced such disruption and disrespect for the media, government and the courts as from this President.  This is unchartered territory for us and I don't think most Americans are going to go quietly into the night ... so to speak.

The White House website listed her businesses and they had to take it down so they were still trying to get over.

Let's not forget she took credit for the speech which contained wording from Michelle's even after the writer admitted he wrote it not her. So too bright she is definitely not.

Maybe Donald dumb told her she could and it back fired.

By the way,
I'm just watching 'The Ides of March'. Perfect stuff for this issue...

party animal - not! wrote:It's sad, really, because she didn't know, and no one seems to have told her that she wouldn't be able to do it anyway as the wife of the President.

In which case, the law suit presumably becomes irrelavent

Does anyone really think this was all Melania's idea? I'm guessing that Papa pig and his little oinkers decided that if she wasn't going to go to DC with him she'd better do something to earn her keep. Far be it from them to miss an opportunity to expand the brand. It's illegal? So what? If anyone complains, sue them into oblivion. (This is the 3rd time she's suing the DM? Totally Trump's MO!)

I don't think she has much choice in the matter. Trump pays the bills. In his head she's bought and paid for. And besides, we've all seen how nasty he gets when he's crossed. Maybe she saw this as a way to make some "walking away" money? Too bad for her they got busted.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-wife-leaves-husband-22-vote-republican-democrat-a7567356.html


http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/07/politics/donald-trump-murder-rate-fact-check/index.html

I'm sorry she had all these people she could have asked so she has no excuse, she could have asked Michelle or anyone during the transition.

He lies all the time he is just vile.

annemarie - I don't think it's a question of knowing right from wrong. It's more a question of knowing where the rent is coming from and what will happen if you don't play along.

IMO, from the way things look in all the photos of their family, Melania seems more like daddy's latest arm candy than a real member of the clan. Maybe her position isn't that secure.