The Washington Post has a front-page story about the joint statement of outgoing President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The story is interesting and worth reading.
(I notice that the Washington Post removed the photo. So here is another from The Sun of Britain:)
What stopped me in my tracks is the photo of “60 Minutes” filming in the gilded palace where Donald Trump lives, up in the clouds. I was reminded of the palace at Versailles, the rooms where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lived, until the French Revolution, when they lost their heads. (Sorry for initial error with wrong King Louis–and I visited Versailles a year ago. My bad!)
Such opulence! No wonder Trump prefers to be in Trump Tower, rather than the White House. He may turn out to be a part-time President, available in DC only 2 or 3 days a week.
Many people speculated that Trump wanted to win the biggest prize, but he never wanted to be President. That’s a full-time job. He had a really nice life, free to come and go at his pleasure. Now people expect him to be at a desk? All day? He doesn’t like to read. He has a short attention span.
As one of his sons allegedly said, he will let Mike Pence run foreign and domestic policy and attend to the details, while Trump focuses on “making America great again.” Preferably at home in his golden penthouse.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would observe that a great mob of ladies who carved up fish in Paris for a meager living marched to Versailles and, were it not for Layfaette, would have torn the queen into pieces. I spent Obama’s presidency wondering when some fringe person would try to kill him. Now I fear for the controversial Trump as well, who has attempted to be more divisive that Obama was seen to be. Revolutions make my stomach hurt.
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I agree, as much as I loathe Trump, I would not want to see some nut try to “hurt” him. As they say, violence begets more violence. I feared for Hillary’s safety, too. This country has a history of disaffected mental cases attempting or succeeding in killing the presidents. So far, I don’t hear liberals calling for 2nd amendment solutions.
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Given that Mike Pence is an evangelical extremist, we should pray for Trump’s health
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Couldn’t get passed the optics to watch the interview!
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“Louis VI,” as no doubt you intended to write.
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Thanks for the correction. It should be Louis XVI and I fixed it.
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Thank you for your highly informative blog, with its torrential flow of useful insights. We met and chatted briefly at the inaugural Diane Ravitch Lecture at Wellesley.
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Indeed and after he utilizes the White House to gain even more money?
People have voted in a worshiper of the golden calf.
He PROMISED jobs. Perhaps the jobs left over, stoop labor et cal when he deports the people who have worked in these jobs, given us food ad a very low price, are deported
.
“The home of the brave”? People afraid of what MIGHT happen when how many people are murdered every day?
For me it is mind boggling.
Sell our birthright for a mess of pottage?
Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.
I would add a planet where homo sapiens can exist.
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The only thing I like about the apartment is the view. I am not a fan of gaudy opulence. Trump should declare himself “the sun king,” and call it a day. Then, at least we could challenge his mental fitness.
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When you are on a very high floor in Manhattan, like the 50th, the people below look like ants. They don’t have faces.
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All the little people then barely exist.
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In the spirit of the Conversation I am going to go with Louis XV
Après nous le déluge
Goodbye, American neoliberalism. A new era is here by Conell West
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/17/american-neoliberalism-cornel-west-2016-election
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If you google images of the Donald Trump Penthouse, you’ll see lots of other shots, too, including this one of Barron sitting on a giant toy lion and Melania standing over Donald in her supermodel pose. Lordy.
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They’re creepy and they’re kookey.
Mysterious and spookey.
They’re altogether together ookey.
The Addams Family.
The house is a museum.
When people come to see’em.
They really are a scre-am.
The Addams Family.
Neat
Sweet
Petite
So get a witch’s shawl on.
A broomstick you can crawl on.
We’re going to pay a call on.
The Addams Family.
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She does not act or sing or dance or own a company that employs thousands. Why does she have such an expesive home? What does she produce and how does SHE benefit society?
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At least Chelsea has some taste.
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And it’s just fine for Clinton daughter to have used money from the Clinton foundation to help pay for two years worth of her monthly mortgage payments for her $10.5 millions dollar loft in Manhattan.
And her father-in-law was in jail for security fraud.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/clinton-bill-hillary-chelsea-mezvinsky-pardon-218632
It’s not okay for Trump to live in such opulence based on how laws are slanted toward the wealthy, and it’s NOT okay for the daughter of a former presdident to be sleeping so closely in bed with all sorts of cronyisms and nepotisms that involve financial fraud and misappropriation of funds.
Both parties are horrific and clearly prove how they are disconnected form the average working class person in this country.
I am glad Hillary did not win and I am horrified that Trump did. Both are bad, and their lingonberries don’t fall far from the bush.
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Good grief. I’m so tired of all this false equivalency! Chelsea Clinton is not responsible for crimes her father-in-law committed in the late ’90s. According to the article you linked to, he asked Bill Clinton for a pardon and did not get one, so what is the Clinton scandal part of that?
Chelsea met Marc Mezvinsky at a political event when they were teenagers in 1993, then reconnected later and fell in love. Both his parents had been in the U.S. Congress along the way. It’s natural they would be drawn to each other. And this is bad why?
Marc Mezvinsky is also a highly paid person in the world of finance, and I’m sure he contributes heftily to their family finances. What is your source for saying she used money from the foundation to help pay for two years’ worth of her monthly mortgage payments?
And what does this have to do with Hillary’s qualification for president? Unlike Trump, she wasn’t always rich, and she understands what policies would help people who aren’t rich. She was a lousy campaigner and admitted as much. She would have made a fine president who would have progressed the country forward rather than set us back decades. It’s a shame Bernie’s supporters couldn’t see that — or didn’t want to admit it.
I fear for my children’s future now, and with Hillary, I had no fear.
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In the spirit of the Conversation I am going to go with Louis XV
Après nous le déluge
Goodbye, American neoliberalism. A new era is here by Cornel West
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/17/american-neoliberalism-cornel-west-2016-election
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But it really was Louis XVI
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It was actually the lover of Louis the XV who said
après moi le déluge .
Après nous le déluge
West is writing that neo-Liberalism of the Clinton’s and Bushes brought them both down.
Some how I doubt we will like what is to come. .
.
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Fascism
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Trump style is gaudy, tacky, cartoonish. My guess is that really rich people would laugh at this guy. Well, would’ve laughed at him. Now, he’s been elevated to the most powerful leadership position in our nation. Yikes.
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Maybe someone will secretly install a timed bathroom mister with enough ADHD meds squirting into his work space, giving The Donald the ability to perform his own work, instead of the constant army of his children, and huge entourage of folks keeping him on task, off Twitter, and maybe, just maybe he could communicate above 4th grade level vocabulary, in step with other world leaders.
For now, we are stuck with him for four looooooong years.
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Angela Mermelstein? That’s one heck of an autocorrect
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I wonder about Mermelstein also, Diane? Please explain.
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Who is Mermelstein?
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I really don’t understand how he can stomach himself. One truly, truly has to be in love . . . with oneself. Henrik Ibsen might have created such a character that lives in a sealed reflective bubble, that protects from conscience and nausea on so many levels and needling doubt.
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Echoing Diane, and as I said weeks ago, a Trump Presidency will for the most part be a Regency, with President Donnie acting the Idiot Reality TV/Twitter Prince, while Pence and other sinister professionals actually run the government.
Hopefully, Trumps’s egotism and ADHD throw sand into their gears.
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Will they be erecting statues of Trump in the future? I hope not. The presidential portrait is mandatory or customary. Busts?
Since Trump has been so successful at beating the GOP contenders and Hillary, there will most likely be Trump copycats and Trump clones who will ape his style of campaigning and bloviating. God help us all.
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Diane, to answer “Who is Mermelstein?”–in your first paragraph you wrote “German Chancellor Angela Mermelstein” instead of Merkel.
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Trump’s penthouse decor has also been compared to the decor of Saddam Hussain’s palace.
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