Trump and Congress eye shutdown showdown over border wall
The deadline to fund the government is fast approaching, and neither Democrats nor the White House is backing down.
By Rachael Bade , Burgess Everett and Kyle Cheney
04/23/17 05:01 PM EDT
[sorry, can't snag the image] - Government funding expires Friday, leaving Congress little time to strike a deal. | Getty
President Donald Trump and Congress are on a collision course over government funding this week, as the White House demands money for a border wall with Mexico and Democrats vow it will never see a penny.
But just five days out from a government shutdown, Trump appears headed for disappointment. Democrats are signaling they’re unlikely to cave, and Hill Republicans are already pressing the administration to fight another day.
That means the White House is largely on its own in a high-stakes game of political chicken, weakening its negotiating position. Even Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the former Homeland Security Committee chairman who wrote the 2006 law authorizing the wall’s construction, said the White House should push for it later in the year.
“There’s going to be compromises going on,” King said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Once the government is up and running, and stays open and running, then we have to fight this out over the next year.”
The face-off comes as lawmakers return to Washington following a two-week Easter recess. Government funding expires Friday, leaving Congress little time to strike a deal. A White House push for progress on repealing Obamacare will also consume energy on Capitol Hill, even as a vote on legislation this week appears unlikely.
White House officials and several senior House Republican sources say a short, one-week stopgap may be needed to buy more time to negotiate on a larger bill to fund the government through September.
In the meantime, both sides are puffing up their chests, refusing to budge from their hard-line positions on one of Trump’s most famous campaign pledges. Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly both reiterated during Sunday interviews that Trump would need a down payment on his wall as part of a government funding package.
“It goes without saying that the president has been pretty straightforward about his desire and the need for the border wall,” Kelly said on CNN. “He’ll do the right thing for sure, but I would expect he’ll be insistent on the funding.”
On cue, Democrats scoffed.
“The Democrats do not support the wall,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press." “The burden to keep it open is on the Republicans. The wall is, in my view, immoral, expensive, unwise.”
Meanwhile, sensing the judgments of pundits and politicians surrounding Trump’s 100-day mark this Saturday, the White House is also cranking up the heat on Speaker Paul Ryan to pass an Obamacare repeal-and-replacement this week, another heavy lift for the House.
Mulvaney suggested Sunday the chamber could pass both a health care and government funding bill in the coming days, and he said he’s even “heard rumors” that House lawmakers may work through next weekend to get the repeal passed. That’s a notion most popular among increasingly impatient White House officials; House Republicans have no plans at this time to hold lawmakers in town through the weekend.
Ryan also downplayed .. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/22/when-obamacare-repeal-vote-house-gop-237484 .. the possibility of a health care vote this week during a conference call with Republican lawmakers Saturday. While GOP leaders are more optimistic about reaching a deal to win over their fractious conference, a vote won’t be held until party whips are confident they have the votes for passage.
Plus, the focus on Capitol Hill is the still-unsettled negotiation to avoid a shutdown.
The White House’s hard-line insistence on wall money in the final stages of talks has perplexed some lawmakers, particularly after Trump's vows that Mexico would pay for the wall, not taxpayers. Numerous senior Hill Republicans don’t think the White House request — a $1.4 billion down payment on a construction project that might ultimately cost more than $20 billion — is worth such extensive political capital at this time.
Most GOP lawmakers say they’re confident there will be no shutdown, echoing comments Ryan expressed to House members Saturday. But they will need significant Democratic votes in both chambers, especially with the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
“We have to find eight votes in the Senate to avoid the Senate filibuster,” Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) said on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “We’re going to have to find the way we bring Senate Democrats along.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said it would be dangerous for the United States to flirt with a shutdown during a time of instability in Europe, the rising threat from North Korea and an ongoing conflict in Syria.
“We cannot shut down the government right now,” Rubio said on CBS' "Face the Nation," later adding that the border fight is “worth having for 2018” funding rather than for the current fiscal year. “The last thing we can afford is to send a message to the world is that the United States government, by the way, is partially functioning.”
Privately, numerous Hill Republicans believe the White House will eventually cave on the wall — though Trump is expected to win some extra money for the Pentagon and border security that don’t relate to wall construction.
Some administration officials, however, are adamant that they could pin fault for a government shutdown on Democrats. Mulvaney said Sunday that Republicans would blame the left for “holding hostage national security.” White House legislative liaison Marc Short said “the American people have been clear that they want the border secured.”
"I think the president’s been clear, and the American people elected him on wanting border security,” Short said in an interview Friday. “We don’t see how that’s a controversial element in our minds. … The American people elected us based on that.”
Still, a shutdown showdown is a risky gamble for Republicans, as they control all the levers of power in Washington and would likely shoulder blame, too.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus took a slightly less aggressive approach than other Trump officials, saying on “Meet the Press” that he believes the government will stay open and that he’s “pretty confident we’re going to get something satisfactory” for border security.
He also would not say that Trump will veto a bill that does not explicitly include wall funding. But Republicans on Capitol Hill say they aren’t sure whether Mulvaney, Kelly or Priebus represent Trump’s true position. That complicates the job for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Ryan as they try to move a funding bill that can pass the House and Senate and be signed by Trump.
“Hard to know whom is speaking for Trump,” said a Republican familiar with negotiations. “No one wants to be the bearer of bad news.”
The wall money isn’t the only spending sticking point for Congress and the White House. Democrats have demanded the administration commit to funding Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies either in law through the appropriations package, or via executive branch actions by the Health and Human Services Department.
The White House had threatened to cut off funding the subsidies, a stance Trump doubled down on through a Sunday tweet: “ObamaCare is in serious trouble. The Dems need big money to keep it going - otherwise it dies far sooner than anyone would have thought.”
Trump is using the threat as a negotiation tactic to bring Democrats to the table. Mulvaney and senior White House officials have offered Democrats a dollar of Obamacare subsidy funding for a dollar of wall funding.
But so far, Democrats haven’t budged.
“I hope the president will back off,” said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber. He called Trump’s hard-line tactics on the wall a “political stunt” and said a shutdown “would be the height of irresponsibility. He would not want that to define his first 100 days.”
Democrats, in their demands for Obamacare funding, are fighting to keep people in (health insurance, and the Republicans, for Trump's wall money, are fighting to keep people out (of the country) .. exclusivity vs exclusivity ..
LADY IN WAITING The soon-to-be First Couple is welcomed to the White House by the Obamas on Inauguration Day 2017. By Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Left, Melania (right) with fellow model Emma Eriksson during a 1995 photo shoot; Right, at a party at Marquee, a New York nightclub, in 2004. Left, by Alé De Basseville/Splash News; Right, by Richard Corkery/New York Daily News/Getty Images.
The couple with Donald’s daughter Ivanka at the 2004 Met Gala. By Evan Agostini/Getty Images. Left, Melania picks up her son, Barron, from school, in New York, in 2016; Right, in the White House before leaving for Mar-a-Lago on March 17. Left, from Probe-Media.com; Right, by Ron Sachs/DPA/Abaca.
Donald and Melania at the Inaugural Luncheon, at the Capitol. By Molly Riley/AFP/Getty Images.
Until November 8, Melania Trump’s marriage provided her with a golden Fifth Avenue fortress, at a price—putting up with her husband’s humiliations and boorishness. From Melania’s ill-fated campaign appearances to her apparent reluctance to embrace the role of First Lady: how a very private woman is coping with the intense public scrutiny of her marriage.
by Evgenia Peretz April 21, 2017 2:00 pm
Traditionally, presidents have at least made a show of having healthy, happy marriages. Even the Clintons, despite marital troubles, appeared to have moments of genuine affection, humor, and bonding. But from almost the first moments of Inauguration Day, during the ceremonial arrival at the White House, it seemed something was amiss with the Trumps. Perhaps you’ve seen the clip: Donald and Melania’s black S.U.V. arrives at the White House, where Barack and Michelle Obama are waiting to greet them. Donald bolts from the car and marches up the stairs, leaving behind Melania, in her powder-blue, Jackie-esque suit, carrying a large Tiffany box. (Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton all escorted their wives at this moment.) This snapshot of the Trump marriage was soon followed by other odd moments. During Franklin Graham’s blessing, Donald turned around to look at Melania. She smiled momentarily. But once his back was turned, her face fell into a miserable frown. Later that night, as the president and First Lady had their “first dance,” twice over, to “My Way,” she was often stiff and pulling away from his face.
#SaveMelania and #SadMelania were soon trending on Twitter. The next day, protesters at the Women’s March carried signs that said, FREE MELANIA. A fashion fixture who’s known the Trump clan for decades shared with me his fantasy: “My dream is that Michelle Obama will convince her to leave him, and she’ll become this great feminist icon. She will walk into the middle of everything and say, ‘He’s crazy. This is nuts. I don’t know what I was doing!’ ”
Alas, a Hollywood ending this exciting is unlikely. After two high-maintenance wives, Donald Trump seems deliberately to have chosen as his third a woman who would be both bombshell and cipher, a physical testament to his manhood and amazingness. She would be decorative and polite, not needy and annoying. “I’m not a nagging wife,” Melania has declared a couple of times—her manifesto. According to some of Trump’s friends and associates, she has stuck to it.
“She enjoys her role of stepping back and letting him take center stage,” says decorator friend William Eubanks, who spent Thanksgiving with the Trumps at Mar-a-Lago, along with romance-novel-cover model Fabio and boxing promoter Don King. According to Lisa Bytner, who did P.R. for Trump Model Management when it was launched in 1999, and became a friend of the couple’s, Trump found in Melania the perfect mate. “She doesn’t make waves,” says Bytner. “She speaks only when spoken to. She’s just very sweet.” Except, in public, when called upon to defend her husband’s demeaning attitudes toward women, or to be a mouthpiece for some of his offensive claims, such as birtherism.
And yet, woefully pliant as Melania may be, even she may have a breaking point. Over the course of reporting this story, for which her close friends declined to talk, an uneasy picture has emerged of their marital union. Melania’s unhappiness and the couple’s apparent lack of closeness are becoming more noticeable. Despite assurances from her spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, that Melania is embracing the role of First Lady, most signs point to a distinct lack of interest. And while Grisham says Mrs. Trump plans to move to the White House once their son, Barron, “finishes out the school year,” there have been indications that she is in no particular rush.
* * *
Once upon a time, it was a story that made perfect sense: a Slavic How to Marry a Billionaire. Melanija Knavs, the determined daughter of a former Communist Party member, grew up in Slovenia, where she and her older sister, Ines, learned from their parents’ ambition for upward mobility. Having creative aspirations, she studied design at the University of Ljubljana. But after she won runner-up in a beauty contest, she dropped out, hoping to put Slovenia behind her and become a model.
Her quest took her to Paris and Milan, where, in 1995, she had the good luck of meeting Paolo Zampolli—a co-owner of Metropolitan Models, a pal of Donald’s, and a gregarious playboy—who was on a scouting trip in Europe. “I told Melania, ‘If you would like to come to try the United States, we’d like to represent you,’ ” recalls the fast-talking Zampolli in his Gramercy Park town house. “I say very simple, ‘Please come.’ ” Melania was in.
Zampolli says he secured Melania’s visa. In 1996 she moved to New York City, settling into Zeckendorf Towers, on Union Square, where Zampolli set her up with a roommate, a photographer named Matthew Atanian. Unlike many twentysomethings, who come to New York City with an unquenchable lust for experience, Melania, according to Atanian, had little interest in nightlife or making friends. When she went out, it seemed to be with older men, only for dinner, and she always came home before her roommate had gone out, he says. (Grisham says that Melania did not do much dating, due to her “extensive travel schedule” as a model.) Demonstrating admirable Slavic discipline, “she wore ankle weights around the apartment and the common areas,” recalls Atanian. “She would strictly eat five to seven vegetables and fruits every day. She drank a lot of water . . . . She was looking to make money [as a model].”
But, according to Atanian, Melania was getting only second- and third-tier modeling work, and, at age 26, time was running out. Atanian, then shooting for Marie Claire, recalls her asking him to help her get in the magazine. He sensed it was hopeless. “She was always kind of a stiff person. That’s why she wasn’t a successful model, because she couldn’t move.”
Fortunately, Melania captured the attention of Donald Trump at a party, thrown by Zampolli, at the Times Square nightclub the Kit Kat Club, during Fashion Week in September 1998. Trump had come with a date, Norwegian cosmetics heiress Celina Midelfart, but when she went off to use the bathroom, Trump approached Melania and asked for her number. She took his number instead—a story she tells proudly. Soon they were at the 1990s Greenwich Village hot spot Moomba, starting a romance. Atanian and one of their model friends ribbed Melania, he says, coming out “with remarks such as ‘Oh, it’s the small hands you like, not the money, right? The comb-over, the dashing good looks.’ Melania would say, ‘Stop it, stop it.’ Her rap was ‘He’s a real man.’ ”
“All these European models, they’re tough as hell. They know what they’re doing. They’ve been watching the Americans forever,” says photographer Harry Benson, who has shot numerous First Couples, and Melania at least twice.
The union made perfect sense for Donald too. After demanding Ivana [ http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/07/donald-ivana-trump-divorce-prenup-marie-brenner ] and needy Marla [ http://www.vanityfair.com/news/1990/11/marla-maples-donald-trump-relationship ], Melania would be the perfect mate, one who would be an advertisement for his virility while giving him his “space.” Federico Pignatelli, a longtime Trump friend and business associate, who founded the fashion studio Pier 59, says, “Ivana was an intelligent, entrepreneurial woman. Also a very strong-minded person and very feisty. While instead, Melania . . . really no fights.” For her part, Melania would get a luxurious home where she could indulge her hobbies—Pilates and reading fashion magazines, according to People—in peace, and a promise that she would never have to return to drab Eastern-European prospects. Donald accompanied Melania to her homeland once. “I was there for about 13 minutes,” he later said to Larry King with Melania by his side. “We landed. I said, Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. Bye.” Eventually Trump brought her family over to New York (where her parents now live for most of the year), allowing her to cut ties with the Old Country.
For a few years, the relationship worked perfectly. Propping up Donald’s sexual prowess called for some public self-degradation, but Melania, as his girlfriend, was willing to do it. In 1999, shortly after they began dating, she participated in an on-air phone call with Trump and Howard Stern, as they discussed her chest, and whether she stole money from Donald’s wallet. When Stern asked to talk to “that broad in your bed,” Trump put her on the line, and she spoke about how they had sex more than daily, and revealed that she was nearly nude. Stern replied, “I have my pants off already.” Thanks to her relationship with Trump, she finally got her glossy-magazine spread—nearly naked in British GQ, handcuffed to a briefcase on a private jet, which Trump supplied. Managing the career moves of his companions was part of a pattern. While he was still married to Ivana, Trump pushed his girlfriend Marla Maples to pose nude in Playboy and reportedly negotiated the fee himself [id.]. (The deal fell through.)
* * *
A Model Marriage
After almost seven years of dating Melania, Donald finally married her, in 2005, with a lavish reception at Mar-a-Lago, studded with A-list folk from the entertainment and news businesses—many of whom Donald now despises. As a wife, Melania became a dutiful spokeswoman for his self-proclaimed success. Michael D’Antonio, author of The Truth About Trump, recalls the exchanges he witnessed between her and Donald at Trump Tower. “He begged her to praise him [to me] as a husband . . . . Literally, he said, ‘Tell him I’m a really good husband.’ She looked at him, and he repeated himself. And she said, ‘Yeah, he’s a really good husband.’ It was being dragged out of her,” says D’Antonio. Then she repeated a story D’Antonio had already heard from Trump: Tom Cruise once called Donald to see if he could use the Wollman skating rink in Central Park (which Trump had renovated with much fanfare in 1986) during off-hours. Donald was very flattered that the actor had called him personally—but Melania pointed out, “Oh, but, Donald, you’re more famous than he is.” Trump seemed to feel that this story was “an example of their affection,” recalls D’Antonio. “Praising his fame, hyping his fame, was a wifely duty. The people in Trump’s orbit have all memorized the same stories. And they repeat them word for word.”
* * *
About six months after they married, she became pregnant with Barron—and things changed, according to one source. She was 35—“checkout time” for women, as Trump once told Howard Stern-and no longer the dewy fox he’d met seven years earlier. A visitor to one of Trump’s homes, late into Melania’s pregnancy, recalls him remarking that he agreed to the baby on the condition that Melania would get her body back. “She promised him that everything would go back to the way it was,” says this guest; it struck this person as a “contract.” And he was simply rude to her. “There was no ‘How do you feel?’ No opening of doors, making sure she didn’t fall. Just ‘You wanted to have a baby.’ ” (Grisham counters that Mr. Trump was “very warm and supportive throughout her pregnancy.”)
As Donald’s celebrity ballooned with The Apprentice, Melania was asked to tolerate even more. His public interchanges with Howard Stern, which provided a kind of Greek chorus to their relationship, went from lewdly objectifying to grotesque. He agreed with Stern that his daughter Ivanka was “a piece of ass.” He joked that if Melania were in a horrible, mangling car crash he’d still love her as long as the breasts remained intact. When asked by Stern whether he’d be up for “banging 24-year-olds,” Trump eagerly assented. Subsequent accusations suggest similar improprieties.
As People-magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff wrote during the campaign [ http://people.com/politics/donald-trump-attacked-people-writer/ ], while she was on assignment in 2005 to interview the couple at Mar-a-Lago, Trump pushed her against a wall and jammed his tongue down her throat after Melania had left the room. Other women, including contestants in the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants and Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos, claim to have had similar experiences after Trump had married Melania. Trump has dismissed them as liars, and Melania has repeated the assertion. But a source in Trump’s orbit says she was well aware of the man she married. According to her old friend Lisa Bytner, Melania’s attitude has always been “Live and let live.”
As the gorgeous wife of a Manhattan billionaire, Melania has had every opportunity to become a fixture on the gala-going benefit circuit. But that would presume an interest in social status or a cause. As Bytner recalls, “She was passionate about . . . Well, I can’t think what she was passionate about.” Her official White House biography has scant evidence of philanthropy, referring to single events she participated in as “Honorary Chairwoman” some 10 years ago, and the time in 2008 she rang the closing bell at NASDAQ for National Love Our Children Day. “The Trumps don’t comport themselves by the rules that are important to people, especially people on the Upper East Side,” says Wednesday Martin, author of a memoir called Primates of Park Avenue, which chronicles the ways of Manhattan’s rich and privileged. “They’ve rejected out of hand the established rites and rituals of philanthropy—which are to have a cause, have an event, buy a table and get your friends to, and then do the same for them.” New York society ladies paint a picture of a woman with an extraordinary interest in maintaining her beauty and in this she has succeeded wildly. Even among the devoted SoulCycle set, Melania makes everyone feel dowdy by comparison, says a woman in that circle.
Being a Trump, she experimented with creating a brand, with a Melania jewelry line on QVC. But the arrangement was short-lived. When asked about the partnership, QVC released a statement: “QVC has offered items from Melania Trump’s brand. At this time, QVC does not have an active relationship with the brand.” She moved on to a line of Melania skin care—creams and exfoliants laced with caviar. That business ended in a welter of lawsuits, with Melania suing her business partner for $50 million when the venture collapsed. (The suit was settled out of court.)
* * *
One person who would fill the vacuum and give Melania’s life meaning is Barron, 11, who is by most accounts sweet and well behaved, a testament to Melania’s devotion as a mother. The two sometimes speak to each other in Slovenian, and until recently she consistently did drop-off and pick-up from Columbia Grammar and Preparatory. Once considered a laid-back option for mellow upper-middle-class families, Columbia Prep now nearly ranks among the top-tier schools in terms of competitive admission.
“Donations are assumed,” says a parent at the school, referring to sums in the five and six figures, in addition to the $47,000 annual tuition. “You want your kid here, that’s $100,000,” says an uptown parent. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, joined the school’s board around eight years ago, and Trump has donated at least $150,000 to the school. (The school declined to comment, and Cohen, who resigned from the board last year, responds, “To imply that a student was ever offered a seat based upon a donation is wholly inaccurate.”)
Columbia Prep has become a nexus for other key figures in the Trumps’ world, too. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the stepgranddaughter of jeweler Harry Winston and a close friend of Melania’s, has a daughter at the school. For more than 10 years, Wolkoff was a chief organizer of the Metropolitan Museum’s annual Met Gala, an event about which she has said, “No money, no come-y.” Cohen’s term on the board overlapped that of Caryn Zucker, the wife of Jeff Zucker, head of CNN, who helped catapult Trump to celebrity stardom with The Apprentice when Zucker was the president of NBC. The Zuckers have three kids at the school, and Caryn is said to be one of Melania’s friends. This trio—Cohen, Wolkoff, and Jeff Zucker—would all go on to play roles in the Trumps’ next chapter: presidential politics. Zucker led the way in giving Trump hours of unfiltered airtime during the campaign (but has since steered CNN to solid opposition ground). Wolkoff would be the First Lady’s first hire, as a senior adviser. Cohen became a rabid Trump surrogate. Threatening a reporter who asked him about Ivana Trump’s claim, later recanted, that Donald had raped her, Cohen said, “I will take you for every penny you still don’t have . . . . What I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting.” (Cohen later apologized for his “inarticulate comment.”) He is now reportedly under scrutiny in the Trump-Russia investigations but has denied any wrongdoing.
* * *
To the White House
With Donald entering national politics, he would be asking even more of Melania. In the spring of 2011, he began to shore up his support from the far right for a potential presidential run, by casting doubt on President Obama’s citizenship. Melania agreed to be interviewed by talk-show host Joy Behar, to whom she repeated his birther claims almost verbatim: “Do you want to see President Obama’s birth certificate or not?,” Melania asked Behar. “In one way, it would be very easy if President Obama just show it. It’s not only Donald who wants to see it. It’s American people who voted for him and who didn’t voted for him—they want to see that!” (No matter that Obama had released his birth certificate in 2008, showing he was born in Hawaii.)
Trump decided not to run in 2012, saying he wasn’t ready to leave the private sector. Four years later, the time had come. Trump’s official story is that he consulted with his family about his decision to run, and they all agreed. A former campaign aide recalls a conversation in which Melania told this aide that she didn’t want Donald to run, because she was terrified he might win. According to another Trump insider, “She never wanted this, and never had any interest.” (Grisham maintains that “Mrs. Trump has always been supportive of all her husband’s endeavors.”) Tolerating his boorishness—that she could do. Repeating a couple of lame sound bites to Joy Behar—fine. But serious campaigning for one’s spouse required far more actual effort.
Melania seemed to do her best to ignore the new reality, on the grounds that she wanted to be home for Barron. Over the course of Trump’s 17-month campaign, she rarely joined her husband at rallies, and the speeches she gave could be counted on one hand. Compare that with Michelle Obama, who spoke all over the country on Barack’s behalf, though she too had young children. During the primaries, Donald made do by re-tweeting a picture of Melania next to an unflattering shot of Heidi Cruz, Ted’s wife, with the caption “The images are worth a thousand words.”
But then he clinched the nomination, and more Melania participation was required—which, alas, did not do her any favors. In February 2016, in an interview with MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, Melania expounded on illegal immigration, using her personal story as an example of model behavior. “I followed the law . . . . And you should do that. You should not just say, O.K., let me stay here. And whatever happens happens.”
To some, this statement pointed up a lack of compassion toward a group she herself is part of. Her immigration attorney Michael Wildes, who worked for Trump Models and the Miss Universe pageant, denies that Melania’s stance toward fellow immigrants is unsympathetic, likening her to “the biblical Queen Esther” on this issue. When I pressed him to explain how, specifically, Melania has demonstrated concern for immigrants, he put me on hold for some time, and returned with what sounded like a carefully crafted non sequitur: “She’s extremely thoughtful and sincere about asking about family members who are not in her circle. She’s fully aware of your family.”
Then there was that speech she had to give at the Republican convention. According to a source with knowledge of events, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, took control and hired two George W. Bush speechwriters, Matthew Scully and John McConnell, to write it. It was Kushner, not Melania, who provided them with the outlines of her story, and the touching personal anecdotes. The speechwriters assumed that eventually they’d get some input from Melania, but the call never came. After the speech sat around for a few weeks, Donald’s frequent ghostwriter, Meredith McIver, got her hands on it. The final draft of the speech was nothing like the one the speechwriters had turned in. The radical rewrite may not have been ordered by anyone in particular, says this source, but was perhaps the product of a campaign in disarray. Hours before her convention speech, Melania told the Today show’s Matt Lauer, “I wrote it, with as little help as possible.”
Later that night, after she delivered the speech, it was revealed that passages had been lifted from the convention speech Michelle Obama had given eight years earlier. All of a sudden, campaign spokesmen were blaming “Melania’s team of writers,” and insisting Melania had nothing to do with the “unfortunate oversight.” In the end, McIver took the fall, writing a public letter, apologizing to the Trumps and saying how honored she was to work for such great people. “It wasn’t Melania’s fault,” insists Zampolli. According to a campaign aide, “she was distraught” at the turn of events. She disappeared from view and holed up in Trump Tower.
It got worse. In October, the “grab them by the pussy” tape was leaked—Trump’s bragging to Billy Bush of Access Hollywood about touching women’s private parts, recorded during the first year of his marriage to Melania. Donald dismissed his words as “locker-room talk,” but then one woman after another came out of the woodwork to claim that these weren’t just words. But Donald boasted that he had never apologized to Melania, because there was nothing to apologize for. At campaign rallies, he made his case by saying that some of the accusers weren’t hot enough for him to hit on.
This was a five-alarm fire, and it seemed as though Melania, in spite of her previous missteps, was the only person who could put it out. On October 17, she went on CNN to defend her husband, dismissing his words as “boy talk” and blaming everyone else—Billy Bush, who had “egged him on,” NBC for releasing the tape, the “left-wing media” for reporting on it, and the accusers, whose accounts were “lies.” Trump’s defenders dug in. Zampolli, while acknowledging that the tape wasn’t pleasant to hear, waves it away. “Sometimes, [during] Girls Night Out, you guys make some comments about bodies like this.” Pignatelli agrees. “He adores women. And he respects women. When you adore your daughter, you respect women. And he adores Ivanka. Literally adores her. So when a man adores his daughter, he respects women.”
* * *
Not Over Until the First Lady Sings
There were signs that the pressure was taking its toll on Melania. At Columbia Prep Parents Night, shortly after the recording was released, “she looked really thin, tired, and sad,” recalls a parent. “Nobody was talking to her. Nobody knew what to say.” But Election Day was right around the corner, and duty called. As a potential First Lady, Melania needed to come up with a “platform.” On November 3, she gave her first solo speech since the debacle at the Republican convention, and announced that she intended to fight . . . cyberbullying, a claim she made seemingly with no awareness that she was married to the worst cyberbully on the planet. Was she really that clueless?
Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus—whom Trump attacked on Twitter as “a real dummy” and a “major loser” after she criticized him on CNN—believes “it was the height of spoiled self-centeredness. Of a very privileged, wealthy woman looking only at herself, who clearly has no thoughts or care for the people her husband has damaged, ruined, and traumatized by his cyberbullying.” Again, Melania was pilloried by the media. On the plus side, the election was in five days, and the prospect of Trump winning was then estimated to be as little as 10 percent.
Tens of millions of Americans watched the election returns with disbelief. It’s likely that Melania, who watched with the family and allies at Trump Tower, was among them. Stylist Phillip Bloch, an acquaintance of Melania’s, who worked with Donald on his pageants, says, “I’ll tell you, that pantsuit didn’t look like she was going to a victory rally. That outfit was like, ‘I’m getting on the plane going to Palm Beach. This is over now. Thank God.’ ”
And yet, here was a chance—a golden opportunity for Melania to do something transformative for the world, or at least to serve as the compassionate partner, a kinder counterweight to a man whose lifeblood was to insult.
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The tradition of First Lady is no lightweight anachronism. According to A. Scott Berg, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Wilson, the best-selling 2013 biography of Woodrow Wilson, “President William Howard Taft called the White House ‘the loneliest place in the world.’ It has fallen upon 40 First Ladies of the United States before Melania to assuage that loneliness by offering a sympathetic ear and often the only advice their husbands could trust implicitly.” From Eleanor Roosevelt, who served as “her husband’s legs” as she toured coal mines and front lines, to Betty Ford, who bravely presented herself as a survivor of breast cancer, to Hillary Clinton, who led the charge on health-care reform, to Michelle Obama, who encouraged fitness through a national program of diet and exercise, the majority of modern First Ladies have played robust roles. “Even those First Ladies who evaded the spotlight—such as Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, and Pat Nixon—graciously and publicly stood by their men,” Berg says.
But Melania has approached the job of First Lady hesitantly. According to a source close to the transition, the East Wing, where First Ladies have their offices, was practically a ghost town. “A First Lady comes in with seasoned partnerships,” said this source. “You come in with a staff, your people. They have no people. Look who was at Thanksgiving: Don King and Fabio.”
True, Melania’s first hire was her old friend Stephanie Wolkoff. Her next hires included people who weren’t obvious White House material: decorator Tham Kannalikham, who once worked for Ralph Lauren’s home-furnishings business, and, as social secretary, Anna Cristina Niceta Lloyd, whose previous job had been as an account executive at a catering company.
In April, Melania became somewhat more visible, standing by Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago during the visit of Chinese president Xi Jinping and his wife, and visiting an all-girls charter school in Washington, D.C., with Queen Rania of Jordan.
But as this article was going to press, she hadn’t yet done anything about cyberbullying. Offers have been made to gather experts in the field to educate her. When asked what Melania intends to do with the issue, a source in frequent contact with the Trumps shrugs and says noncommittally, “I suspect she’ll do something.” (Grisham says the First Lady “continues to work on building her agenda in a thoughtful way . . . . She likes things to be done right, and doing things right takes time.”)
“The only action Melania Trump has taken in regard to cyberbullying is in regard to herself,” Cheri Jacobus told me. She may have a point. In February, Melania successfully settled with a blogger, for a “substantial sum,” according to her lawyer, for making the unsubstantiated claim that she’d been an escort. She filed a $150 million suit against the Web site of the Daily Mail for reporting the claim. The suit alleged that the defamatory statement destroyed her “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to make millions during this “multiyear term” in which she is “one of the most photographed women in the world.” Only after the media pointed out that the wording implied a blatant intention to profit from the presidency was that part taken out. (The tabloid and its Web site retracted the article, but the suit went ahead, ending in mid-April when the Daily Mail and MailOnline issued an official apology and paid damages reported to be around $3 million.)
With Melania often absent, Ivanka has gone a long way toward filling the role of First Lady, and has even moved into her own office in the West Wing of the White House. In the first months of the Trump presidency she, instead of Melania, met and socialized with a number of world leaders and C.E.O.’s. To be sure, Ivanka seems to have an intense personal will to power, but there is no doubt that stepping in for Melania has also been an obligation. Two sources in fashion and media have observed a frostiness between the two. (A source close to Ivanka said that their relationship is “fine.” Grisham says, “Ivanka and Mrs. Trump have always shared a close relationship, and that continues today.”)
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New York’s chattering class has recently been abuzz with gossip that Melania was considering a divorce after the Access Hollywood tape came out. But Melania’s camp denies those rumors, and Zampolli says that during New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago “it looked like they were on a first date. I don’t have that kind of romance with my wife.” Us Weekly has reported that the Trumps sleep in separate quarters, both in New York and at Mar-a-Lago. Grisham dismisses this as “fictional.” In any case, Zampolli explains that, for people like him and Donald, that’s no big deal. “I built a very big house,” he says, gesturing at his massive town house, “that goes to six floors . . . . [My wife] wants to live in her own spot, trust me. The house is 20,000 square feet, as you can see.”
Despite official statements that Melania will move to Washington at the end of the school year, at press time the Trumps had still not announced a D.C.-area school for Barron. According to a well-placed member of the Washington education community, they had not yet applied to some of the schools one might have imagined. A St. Albans parent notes, “There’s been no ‘Barron will be going to my school’ ” sort of dish one might expect. (Grisham says, “They are still looking at a few schools.”)
New Yorkers are paying dearly for Melania’s gilded boundaries. It’s costing the city about $1 million per week to protect her and Barron. The Columbia Prep community is struggling to deal with a situation it never bargained for. Pick-up has become a complicated ordeal, according to a parent. Choppers have hovered overhead. Recently, a suspicious truck was parked outside, causing the school to go on lockdown. The children were told to move away from the windows. “The parents are very unhappy,” says one, who believes no president should have a child at a New York City school. “We’re not geared for it. The kids feel the anxiety, too.” In addition, the public expression of political fervor has been discouraged, as the members of the community were asked to refrain from discussing the election on school grounds.
What will become of Melania and Donald? Perhaps some kind of feminist fantasy (involving Michelle Obama or not) will come to pass. To be sure, it would provide a gripping melodrama and an “I told you so” victory for those who were appalled by Donald’s misogynist outbursts revealed during the campaign. But shouldn’t we be entitled to more? As Berg says, “A nation now wonders what role, if any, the new First Lady might play in its life. So too, perhaps, does her husband.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/donald-melania-trump-marriage [with embedded videos introduced "For a quick primer on some of Donald Trump’s failed relationships—professional and personal—take a look at the video below." and "Women throughout the world continue to protest Donald Trump’s administration. In the video below, see some of the policies they’re taking issue with."]
GOP Rep Tells Mom Her Son On Medicaid Should Just Get A Better Job If He Wants Health Care Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), seated in the white shirt, tells a woman her son should get a job that provides health insurance if he wants decent coverage. Rep. Warren Davidson also compared buying health insurance to buying a cell phone.
The White House Seems Excited to Shut Down the Government
Under terms set forth by Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget chief, the ruination of Obamacare is once again tied up with keeping the government running. PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
By Ryan Lizza April 21, 2017
Next Saturday, April 29th, is President Trump’s hundredth day in office, a historical marker used by the press to assess a new President’s progress since the first term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. F.D.R. was grappling with the Great Depression, and he had a pliant Congress that would have passed almost anything he proposed. Presidents since then have often struggled to meet the expectations of the hundred-day report card but generally can point to a list of major legislative accomplishments. Trump does not have such a list. At the same time, the Trump White House is facing a much more consequential deadline, one that will help define his first months in office and perhaps his first term: absent a spending deal with Democrats and Republicans in Congress, next Saturday the government will shut down.
While the potential for a government shutdown has been overshadowed by other events—Syria, North Korea, the attempted repeal of Obamacare—the Trump White House is suddenly seized with the issue. “Next week is going to have quite high drama,” a top White House official, who sounded excited by the coming clash, told me. “It’s going to be action-packed. This one is not getting as much attention, but, trust me, it’s going to be the battle of the titans. And the great irony here is that the call for the government shutdown will come on—guess what?—the hundredth day. If you pitched this in a studio, they would say, ‘Get out of here, it’s too ridiculous.’ This is going to be a big one.”
The last government shutdown was in October, 2013, and was widely blamed on conservative Republicans in the House, with a major assist from Senator Ted Cruz, who demanded that Obamacare had to be defunded, a ludicrous strategy given that Barack Obama was President. Congress failed to pass the necessary legislation, and the government closed for two weeks before Republicans came back to the table. At the time, many predicted that the tactic would have dire political consequences for the G.O.P., but the following year the Party expanded its majority in the House and took over the Senate. Republican leaders have prevented their right wing from forcing shutdowns in the years since, but one lesson from 2013 is that the threat of a government shutdown is a powerful way to press for concessions without paying too high a political price.
In recent weeks, the prospect of a government shutdown seemed low. In the House and Senate, Democratic and Republican appropriators, who, despite ideological differences, are often united in their desire to spend money, were making steady progress. But there was an elephant in the room. In mid-March, the Trump Administration released a detailed spending request that included a large increase for the military and for immigration enforcement and massive cuts to domestic discretionary spending. While the budget was released with fanfare, the White House seemed to retreat from the talks, leaving congressional Democrats and Republicans to continue their work without much guidance from Trump.
Yesterday, that changed. Mick Mulvaney, a Republican and former congressman who was one of the House members who agitated for the 2013 shutdown and is now Trump’s budget director, announced that “elections have consequences.” The consequence, it would seem, was a divisive proposal. Mulvaney suggested that if Trump didn’t get his defense spending and border wall—which, it should be noted, he promised would be paid for by Mexico—then the federal payments, known as cost-sharing reduction subsidies, or C.S.R., that pay for health insurance for millions of Americans under Obamacare had to be cut from the spending bill. The ruination of Obamacare is once again tied up with keeping the government running.
The funding legislation likely can’t pass in the House without some Democratic votes, and it certainly can’t pass without Democratic votes in the Senate, where Republicans need eight Democrats to reach the sixty-vote threshold to prevent a filibuster. The two sides aren’t even close.
“There’s a big spread between the bid and the ask here,” the White House official said, noting that Trump wanted thirty billion dollars for defense, several billion for more ICE agents and the border wall, as well as eighteen billion dollars in cuts to domestic spending and the ability to withhold federal money from cities that don’t coöperate with immigration officials.
The big priorities for Democrats are the money for those people who need Obamacare subsidies, the protection of domestic spending, and increases for programs for opioid addiction and health care for coal miners, the last two being issues that Trump ostensibly campaigned on. These shouldn’t be a big deal, Democrats say, and they have accused the White House of throwing a grenade into negotiations in order to wrest some sort of political victory in the first hundred days. “For weeks, the House and Senate Democrats and Republicans have been working well together,” a Democratic aide said. “Then, all of a sudden, the White House is looking at next week and they have nothing to show for the first one hundred days, and they either want a health-care bill to pass next week, which seems like a heavy lift, or to get more on immigration from this process. Even Republicans don’t want this fight, and they don’t want a shutdown on Day One Hundred of the Trump Administration.”
The White House, which is trying to force another vote on an Obamacare repeal, seems desperate to either win some of Trump’s priorities in a deal next week, or force a government shutdown that it can blame on Democrats. That might energize Trump’s supporters, who don’t have much to celebrate yet.
But it’s not just the Democrats who oppose several Trump priorities. Congressional Republicans, who are generally united in support for the increase in defense spending, are divided on the border wall, which is not popular among border-state Republicans, and the deep domestic-spending cuts.
So far, it does not look like a bridgeable gap. “This is going to be high-stakes poker,” the White House official said. When I asked if a shutdown was likely, the official paused for several seconds. “I don’t know,” the official said. The official added, “I just want my wall and my ICE agents.”
Federal ‘Witch Hunt’ Against Trump Twitter Critic Sparks Investigation Homeland Security’s inspector general is looking into a possible abuse of authority. 04/21/2017 Updated April 24, 2017 The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security has launched an internal investigation into federal efforts to “unmask” the owner of a Twitter account critical of immigration policies. Inspector General John Roth informed Sen. Ron Wyden [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/sen-ron-wyden ] (D-Ore.) in a letter Friday [ https://www.wyden.senate.gov/download/?id=1CCC6A24-C0F2-4FC2-9C1D-3A40785155A9&download=1 ] that his office is conducting a probe to determine whether behavior by federal officials concerning the Twitter account was “improper in any way” or if there was an “abuse of authority.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, last month served Twitter with a summons demanding the identity of the operator of the account for “Alt Immigration” – @ALT_uscis [ https://twitter.com/ALT_uscis ]. The account is one of dozens that sprang up after Donald Trump [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/donald-trump ]’s inauguration purporting to be the rebellious voice of truth from within various federal agencies or from agency supporters. Twitter in turn sued [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-trump-lawsuit_us_58e6a5a9e4b0585892c9c5ab ] CBP and DHS to block the action, and the demand was dropped. [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-witch-hunt-investigation_us_58faa4eee4b06b9cb9171b0f [with embedded video]
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Guest: Most French see Trump as a flake
AM Joy 4/23/17
As the world watches whether far-right candidate Marine Le Pen will win the French presidential election, Joy Reid and her guests[, including Malcolm Nance,] discuss the climate in Europe and elsewhere applauded by Trump—and likely Putin. Duration: 14:53
With the president reaching new approval lows, Joy Reid and her panel discuss the GOP attempting to negotiate with Democrats to fund the border wall, in exchange for saving healthcare. Duration: 8:32
Professor Allan Lichtman, one of the few experts to predict Trump’s presidential win, joins Joy Reid on his new book, 'The Case for Impeachment.' Duration: 6:13
Report: FOX boss made black workers arm wrestle for whites
AM Joy 4/23/17
New York magazine editor Gabriel Sherman tells Joy Reid that a group of African-American FOX employees have filed suit alleging they were made to arm wrestle for the amusement of white coworkers. Her panel joins to discuss. Duration: 14:46
Dean on Jeff Sessions: I get the feeling it’s incompetence
AM Joy 4/23/17
Why can’t Attorney General Jeff Sessions fill dozens of empty U.S. attorney positions? Joy Reid and former Nixon White House counsel John Dean discuss Sessions’ unworkable immigration crackdown. Duration: 6:11
Terea Tomlinson, the mayor of Columbus, GA, joins Joy Reid telling us that the close race for Health Secretary Tom Price’s former congressional seat shows that Georgia could become a purple state. Duration: 8:12
The globalists have used distorted science and secret programs for decades to consolidate their power and subjugate mankind. Alex breaks down how it all has been planned and what they are doing to discredit patriots worldwide.
EndGame HQ full length version
Uploaded on Nov 13, 2009 by ChangeDaChannel [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3dZNn_1-kP76SmIqy4rHSw / http://www.youtube.com/user/ChangeDaChannel , http://www.youtube.com/user/ChangeDaChannel/videos ] Get the DVD at: http://infowars-shop.stores.yahoo.net... For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME. Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest wars—creating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire. * Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. * Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever. * Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation. * View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-CrNlilZho [with (over 9,000) comments]
Alex Jones Breaks Down Why the Elite Fear Him Published on Apr 23, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel Alex explains how the infowar and it's supporters have changed the landscape globally and have thwarted the plans of the globalists. Now they're out to get him and destroy the movement to restore liberty and justice to the world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TcRN8-ru20 [with comments]
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hold an incredible amount of political power. That's troubling considering their incredibly small amount of political experience.
Le Pen Camp Attacks Front-Runner Macron as Oligarchs’ Candidate Marine Le Pen on April 23. April 24, 2017 Updated April 24, 2017 The far-right National Front attacked presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron as a “candidate of oligarchs” and banking lobbies, who parties with show-business celebrities, as it sought to portray Marine Le Pen as more in touch with the French people. [...] The candidate of the newly created On the Move party [i.e., Macron] would defeat Le Pen in the runoff by 61 percent of the vote to 39 percent, according to a daily rolling poll released by OpinionWay on Monday. [...] https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-24/le-pen-camp-attacks-front-runner-macron-as-oligarchs-candidate
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French election relief sends Europe soaring Apr 24, 2017 Euro zone stocks headed for their best day in almost two years on Monday and the euro briefly vaulted to five-month peaks, after the market's favored candidate won the first round of the French election, reducing the risk of another Brexit-like shock. The victory for pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is now expected to beat right-wing rival Marine Le Pen in a deciding vote next month, sent the bluechip STOXX 50 index .STOXX50E up 3.7 percent, France's CAC40 .FCHI over 4 percent and bank stocks .SX7E up more than 6 percent. [.EU] [...] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets-idUSKBN17P10G
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French voters face choice between hope and fear in runoff for presidency April 24, 2017 PARIS - Campaigns offering starkly contrasting choices began their pitch to French voters Monday in a runoff battle for the presidency between a candidate who has preached hope for a more open nation and another who has darkly warned that globalization will destroy France. The victories by Emmanuel Macron, 39, a fresh-faced centrist who has never held elected office, and Marine Le Pen, 48, a battle-hardened nationalist who wants to yank her nation out of the European Union, were a measure of how disgusted voters have become with traditional politicians. Never in the six-decade history of the modern French state have both major left-right political parties been barred from the presidency. But as leaders from across the political spectrum began to unite behind the centrist candidate to deny the far-right Le Pen the presidency, the dominant emotion was not the sunny optimism of Macron’s stump speech, but simple fear that a victory for his rival could doom France, the European Union and the West. [...] Le Pen warned Monday that the nation’s political elites were coming together to conspire against her. “The old rotten Republican front, that no one wants any more, and that the French have kicked out with exceptional violence, is trying to unite around Mr. Macron,” Le Pen said, referring to a successful 2002 effort by politicians across the political spectrum to deny her father the presidency when he made the runoff by uniting in support of his opponent. Le Pen was relaxed and confident during a stroll through a market in the northern French town of Rouvroy, saying that French voters would not be deceived. [...] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/french-voters-face-choose-between-hope-and-fear-in-runoff-for-presidency/2017/04/24/d7b17654-28d1-11e7-86b7-5d31b5fdc114_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
Report: Anti-Semitic incidents have already spiked 86 percent this year
CREDIT: AP /Jacqueline Larma
2016 was also a banner year for anti-Jewish hatred.
Jack Jenkins Apr 24, 2017
New data suggests incidents of anti-Semitic hatred have spiked compared to this time last year, an ominous shift that advocates say signals a multi-year increase of vitriol directed at American Jews.
But even excluding the bomb threats, the numbers for 2017 are unsettlingly high. Overall, the report says 380 “harassment incidents” have already occurred this year (127 percent more than last year), as well as 155 incidents of anti-Jewish vandalism - including three acts of cemetery desecration - an increase of 36 percent. And while physical assaults were down compared to the first quarter of 2016, anti-Semitic incidents at non-Jewish schools increased 106 percent.
“There’s been a significant, sustained increase in anti-Semitic activity since the start of 2016 and what’s most concerning is the fact that the numbers have accelerated over the past five months,” ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said in a statement. “Clearly, we have work to do and need to bring more urgency to the fight.”
Representatives from the ADL said they have tracked anti-Semitic hatred since 1979, but noted that the new numbers are especially disturbing given that 2016 was already an unusually volatile year for hatred enacted against Jews. They pointed to tensions surrounding the election as one of the driving forces behind last year’s increase, citing 34 incidents explicitly tied to the campaign - many of which mentioned then-candidate Donald Trump. Nearly 30 percent of those incidents - 369 - occurred in November and December following Trump’s election, and various news outlets noted the sharp increase [ https://thinkprogress.org/how-donald-trumps-campaign-collapsed-into-an-anti-semitic-vacuum-2c2409c3a8e1 ] in the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric [ https://thinkprogress.org/the-surge-of-trump-fueled-anti-semitism-is-hitting-jewish-reporters-who-cover-him-247ba1a58224 ] but people claiming to be his supporters in 2016.
The report suggests this trend has only worsened in 2017, an assessment that roughly correlates with ThinkProgress’ own effort [ https://thinkprogress.org/thinkprogress-has-been-tracking-hate-since-trumps-election-here-s-what-we-found-e0288ed69869 ] to track hate incidents from November 9, 2016 to February 10 if this year. Our report found that Jews were the group most impacted by a general wave of hate that swept the country after Trump’s victory, with 70 anti-Semitic incidents occurring during that three-month stretch.
“These incidents need to be seen in the context of a general resurgence of white supremacist activity in the United States,” Oren Segal, director of ADL’s Center on Extremism, said in a statement. “Extremists and anti-Semites feel emboldened and are using technology in new ways to spread their hatred and to impact the Jewish community on and off line…The majority of anti-Semitic incidents are not carried out by organized extremists, as the bomb threats in 2017 demonstrate. Anti-Semitism is not the sole domain of any one group, and needs to be challenged wherever and whenever it arises.”
The ADL and other Jewish groups have expressed frustration with the lack of attention paid to the issue by political leaders such as President Trump, who was criticized for repeatedly dodging chances [ https://thinkprogress.org/trump-dodge-condemn-anti-semitism-b0c66e58fe10 ] to condemn anti-Semitism before finally speaking out earlier this year. The White House was also criticized for not mentioning Jews in its statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day in February, a decision they defended [ http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/white-house-holocaust-memorial-day/ ] by noting that others were also killed during Adolf Hitler’s reign as the leader of Nazi Germany (Hitler’s regime committed the worst genocide in history against the Jewish people).
Things only worsened earlier this month, when White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer compared Hitler favorably [ https://thinkprogress.org/spicer-praises-hitler-chemical-weapons-a45144ebb8ae ] to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, claiming that the German tyrant who murdered millions in concentration camps using gas chambers “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” The statement was widely decried for being an obvious falsehood, and Spicer has since apologized.
North Korea warns Australia of possible nuclear strike if it 'blindly toes US line' Mike Pence with Julie Bishop in Sydney on Saturday. North Korea has criticised Bishop over her comments about further sanctions on the country. Foreign ministry spokesman quoted as saying Julie Bishop’s comments can never be pardoned and Pyongyang is acting only in self-defence 22 April 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/23/north-korea-warns-australia-of--nuclear-strike-julie-bishop-mike-pence [with comments]
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SPECIAL REPORT with Alex Jones - The Hits Keep On Coming
Unprecedented Attacks On Alex Jones From Presstitute Media
Published on Apr 24, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYrIgea0zhc [assembled largely from the YouTube just above; with comments] [again, apparently at his attorney's office or a room at the courthouse just before scampering off for another day at his custody trial]
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WATCH LIVE: Former President Barack Obama's first public speech since he left office
He will be speaking from the University of Chicago.
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Read the Full Transcript of President Obama's First Public Speech Since Leaving Office
He talked about his goals for helping the country and empowering young people.
By Megan Friedman Apr 24, 2017
It's been nearly 100 days since President Obama left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Since leaving office, he has been working on a book and even vacationing [ http://www.elle.com/culture/celebrities/news/a44565/obamas-beyonce-jayz-vacation-your-dreams/ ] on Richard Branson's private island. But the former president is now making his way back into the public eye. On Monday, he spoke at the University of Chicago, where he used to be a professor, and had a conversation with some students about the big issues we're facing today.
President Obama gave a brief set of remarks before introducing a panel discussion with six students from the Chicago area. In that speech, he talked about his career path before entering politics and what he hopes to achieve now that he is no longer in the White House. Aside from speaking on Inauguration Day, it was his first public speech since leaving the office of the presidency.
Read his full comments below:
"Thank you. Hey! Thank you. Everybody have a seat. Have a seat. So what's been going on while I've been gone?
It is wonderful to be home. It is wonderful to be at the University of Chicago. It is wonderful to be on the south side of Chicago. And it is wonderful to be with these young people here. And what I want to do is just maybe speak very briefly at the top about why we're here and then I want to spend most of the time that we're together hearing from these remarkable young people who are I think representative of some amazing young people who are in the audience as well.
I was telling these guys that it was a little over 30 years ago that I came to Chicago. I was 25 years old. I had gotten out of college filled with idealism and absolutely certain that somehow I was going to change the world. But I had no idea how or where or what I was going to be doing. And so I worked first to pay off some student loans. And then I went to work at the City Colleges of New York on their Harlem campus with some student organizing.
And then there were a group of churches out on the south side who had come together to try to deal with the steel plants that had closed in the area and the economic devastation that had been taking place, but also the racial tensions and turnover that was happening. They formed an organization and hired me as a community organizer. I did not really know what that meant or how to do it. But I accepted the job.
And for the next three years I lived right here in Hyde Park but I worked in communities like Roseland and Pullman. Working class neighborhoods. Many of which had changed rapidly from white to black in the late '60s, '70s. And full of wonderful people who were proud of their communities, proud of the steps they had taken to try to move into the middle class, but were also worried about their futures, because in some cases their kids weren't doing as well as they had. In some cases these communities have been badly neglected for a very long time. The distribution of city services were unequal. Schools were underfunded. There was a lack of opportunity. And for three years I tried to do something about it. And I am the first to acknowledge that I did not set the world on fire. Nor did I transform these communities in any significant way, although we did some good things. But it did change me.
This community gave me a lot more than I was able to give in return, because this community taught me that ordinary people, when working together, can do extraordinary things. This community taught me that everybody has a story to tell. That is important. This experience taught me that beneath the surface differences of people that there were common hopes and common dreams and common aspirations. Common values. That stitched us together as Americans. And so even though I, after three years, left for law school, the lessons that had been taught to me here as an organizer are ones that stayed with me. And effectively gave me the foundation for my subsequent political career and the themes that I would talk about as a state legislator and as a U.S. Senator and ultimately as president of the United States.
Now, I tell you that history because on the back end now of my presidency, now that it's completed, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about what is the most important thing I can do for my next job? And what I'm convinced of is that although there are all kinds of issues that I care about and all kinds of issues that I intend to work on, the single most important thing I can do is to help in any way I can prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world. Because the one thing that I'm absolutely convinced of is that yes, we confront a whole range of challenges from economic inequality and lack of opportunity to a criminal justice system that too often is skewed in ways that are unproductive to climate change to, you know, issues related to violence. All those problems are serious. They're daunting. But they're not insoluble.
What is preventing us from tackling them and making more progress really has to do with our politics and our civic life. It has to do with the fact that because of things like political gerrymandering our parties have moved further and further apart and it's harder and harder to find common ground. Because of money and politics.
Special interests dominate the debates in Washington in ways that don't match up with what the broad majority of Americans feel. Because of changes in the media, we now have a situation in which everybody's listening to people who already agree with them and are further and further reinforcing their own realities to the neglect of a common reality that allows us to have a healthy debate and then try to find common ground and actually move solutions forward.
And so when I said in 2004 that red states or blue states, they're the United States of America, that was aspirational comment, but I think it's - and it's one that I still believe, that when you talk to individuals one-on-one, people, there's a lot more people that have in common than divides them. But honestly it's not true when it comes to our politics and civic life.
Maybe more pernicious is people are not involved and they give up. As a consequence, we have some of the lowest voting rates of any democracy and low participation rates than translate into a further gap between who's governing us and what we believe.
The only folks who are going to be able to solve that problem are going to be young people, the next generation. And I have been encouraged everywhere I go in the United States, but also everywhere around the world to see how sharp and astute and tolerant and thoughtful and entrepreneurial our young people are. A lot more sophisticated than I was at their age. And so the question then becomes what are the ways in which we can create pathways for them to take leadership, for them to get involved? Are there ways in which we can knock down some of the barriers that are discouraging young people about a life of service? And if there are, I want to work with them to knock down those barriers. And to get this next generation and to accelerate their move towards leadership. Because if that happens, I think we're going to be just fine."
Senate Committee Asks Carter Page to Reveal Russian Contacts
One-time advisor of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump Carter Page addresses the audience during a presentation in Moscow, Russia, December 12, 2016. Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters file
by Ken Dilanian May 5 2017, 3:05 pm ET
The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked former Trump adviser Carter Page to provide a list of his contacts with Russian officials and turn over any emails or other communications with Russians, according to a letter Page provided to NBC News.
The New York Times is reporting [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/05/us/politics/senate-russia-trump-associates.html ] that similar letters were sent to former Trump advisers Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. Committee officials declined to confirm or deny that report. Manafort's spokesman declined to comment; representatives for Stone and Flynn did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The letter to Page was signed by Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Mark Warner, the chairman and ranking Democrat on the committee. It signaled that the committee was stepping up its inquiry into Russian election interference, after spending weeks reviewing intelligence documents. Such requests are commonly made before a formal subpoena for records is issued.
At issue is whether any Trump associate colluded with the Russian intelligence operation to hack, leak and plant fake news stories to hurt Hillary Clinton and benefit Donald Trump.
In a statement, Burr and Warner called for Page to fully cooperate and turn over the material by the deadlines they set for him.
"Should Mr. Page choose to not provide the material requested by those dates, the Committee will consider its next steps at that time," the senators said.
"Mr. Page has indicated in correspondence to the Committee that he looks forward to working with us on this matter, and that our cooperation will help resolve what he claims are false allegations. For that to happen, Mr. Page must supply the requested documents to the Committee. As our letter indicated, the requested documents must be provided in advance of any interviews the Committee may conduct."
Page, Stone, Manafort and Flynn have each drawn FBI attention, though it's not clear whether it all relates to the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the Russian operation. Manafort's financial transactions with his Ukrainian political clients have come under scrutiny, as have Flynn's unregistered lobbying for Turkish government interests during the election campaign.
Stone has acknowledged conversations with Guccifer 2.0, an online persona that American officials say was a front for Russian intelligence. Page, identified in a previous case as a recruiting target for Russian spies, made a trip to Moscow while he was advising the Trump campaign on foreign policy, though his role in the campaign does not appear to have been significant.
The Senate committee is on track to interview as many as two dozen witnesses, U.S. officials tell NBC News. Separately, former acting attorney general Sally Yates is scheduled to testify publicly May 8 before a Senate judiciary subcommittee about her disclosure to the White House that Flynn had misled officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
The House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a separate but parallel investigation, heard testimony behind closed doors Thursday from FBI director James Comey. Among the House lines of inquiry, one official familiar with the investigation told NBC News, is to what extent Russian money bailed out Trump's real estate empire after the 2008 real estate crash.
The letter to Page asked him to list any Russian official or business executive he met with between June 16, 2015 and Jan. 20, 2017. It also asked him to provide information about Russia-related real estate transactions during that period. And it seeks all his email or other communications during that period with Russians, or with the Trump campaign about Russia or Russians.
Page responded in a letter of his own that he was committed to cooperating with the Senate investigation, but "please note that any records I may have saved as a private citizen with limited technology capabilities will be minuscule in comparison to the full database of information which has already been collected under the direction of the Obama Administration during last year's completely unjustified FISA warrant that targeted me for exercising my First Amendment rights, both in 2016 as well as in years prior."
He was referring to reports that the FBI targeted him with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant after suspecting him of acting as an agent of Russia. He denies that allegation.
"I eagerly await your Committee's call to help finally set the record straight following the false evidence, illegal activities as well as other lies distributed by Mrs. Hillary Clinton's campaign and their associates in coordination with the Obama Administration, which defamed me and other supporters of the Trump campaign," Page said in a separate letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, dated March 5.
Carter Page rebukes Senate Russia investigators in letter
Carter Page is a former foreign policy adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign last year
Senate investigators request information from him in a letter and Thursday he responded
By Tom LoBianco and Manu Raju Updated 3:39 PM ET, Fri May 5, 2017
(CNN) — Carter Page brushed back the Senate intelligence committee in a letter Thursday, telling members that if they want details about his communications with Russians, they'll need to ask former President Barack Obama.
The former foreign policy adviser for Donald Trump's campaign, who is being scrutinized by both congressional and FBI investigators, berated the Senate intelligence committee's requests in an April 28 letter provided to CNN for details about his communications and schedule a time to be interviewed by Senate investigators.
The Senate panel has also asked for records of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump adviser Roger Stone as part of its probe. And the panel, sources said, is prepared to subpoena them for the records if necessary.
Instead, Page, who has been strangely outspoken, wrote in his response that he was confident evidence would prove he was a target of surveillance by Obama -- evidence, he said, that would likely induce "severe vomiting" when it comes out.
"I suspect the physical reaction of the Clinton/Obama regime perpetrators will be more along the lines of severe vomiting when all the facts are eventually exposed regarding the steps taken by the U.S. Government to influence the 2016 election," Page wrote.
In a joint statement from the committee's chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, and ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, the investigation's leaders said their committee will "continue to pursue its inquiry into issues surrounding Russia's involvement in the 2016 presidential election."
"Three days ago, Carter Page told Fox News he was cooperating with the committee's investigation into Russian activities surrounding the 2016 Election," the statement said. "Today we have learned that may not be the case."
Warner and Burr later added, "Mr. Page has indicated in correspondence to the committee that he looks forward to working with us on this matter, and that our cooperation will help resolve what he claims are false allegations. For that to happen, Mr. Page must supply the requested documents to the committee."
The Senate letter to Page is the latest sign that its Russia investigation is plowing ahead, now moving to the phase of calling in high-profile witnesses.
In his three-page reply, Page wrote that he believed Senate investigators would have better access to his communications than he would because of the alleged surveillance by the Obama administration.
"But please note that any records I may have saved as a private citizen with limited technology capabilities will be miniscule in comparison to the full database of information which has already been collected under the direction of the Obama Administration during last year's completely unjustified FISA warrant that targeted me for exercising my First Amendment rights, both in 2016 as well as in years prior," Page wrote.
FBI Director James Comey said again this week that Trump was definitely not a target of surveillance by Obama. And House investigators rebutted House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes' claim that Trump aides were victims of incidental collection.
The White House has distanced itself from Page since it became clear he was a key target for investigators.
But Page clearly did not play a central role in Trump's campaign, unlike other targets including former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
CNN's Pamela Brown, Shimon Prokupecz, Jim Sciutto and Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.
Police smoke marijuana yearly to test potency, Alex Jones says May 5th, 2017 Texas-based radio show host Alex Jones admitted during a child custody hearing that he has smoked cannabis, in violation of state law. But he only smoked it once per year, he reasoned — just like law enforcement does. Locked in a custody battle over his three children with his ex-wife, the conservative media personality made the admission during testimony in Austin, Texas, on April 20. That’s right, 4/20. Jones said that he tries marijuana annually to gauge its potency. He argued from the stand that he thought marijuana was too strong, a shortcoming he blamed on billionaire George Soros, a frequent scapegoat of conspiracy theorists. Why smoke cannabis annually? "That’s what police do," Jones said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. "They smoke it once a year, too." Jones has admitted to smoking marijuana before, and notably sparked up on Joe Rogan’s podcast earlier this year. While marijuana is illegal in Texas, it is decriminalized in California, where Rogan’s show was recorded. [...] Defending his own use of marijuana, Jones said police officers "smoke it once a year, too." He didn’t offer any proof of his claim that cops light up joints annually to test the strength of cannabis, and we couldn’t find any. Perhaps Jones anecdotally knows or has heard of police officers who don't keep off the grass, but we didn't find a cop shop that said that was a policy. Law enforcement agencies generally test marijuana potency in a laboratory setting, and not by lighting up in the squad room (or elsewhere). [...] http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2017/may/05/alex-jones/police-smoke-marijuana-yearly-test-potency-alex-jo/
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