Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote about Trump’s reaction to being impeached: Rage, Ridicule, Denial.
Can you hold this man up as a role model for your children?
He writes:
“Dingell! Dingell! … Debbie Dingell, that’s a real beauty,” Trump told a crowd in Michigan, the home state of Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell and the husband she succeeded, John Dingell. He ridiculed the gratitude she showed Trump for her husband’s funeral honors this year. Then he speculated that John Dingell might now be “looking up” from hell. The crowd cheered.
What is wrong with this man?
Trump’s impeachment provoked him to descend still deeper into the depths of demagoguery. His impeachment-night campaign speech — just over two hours long — was an alarming blend of instability and rage.
He was vulgar. He spoke about “the crap that we’re going through” with impeachment, and said of former FBI director James Comey, “I fired his ass.” He tossed in “kiss my ass” and “get your ass whipped” for good measure.
He was bizarre. He complained about inadequate water flow in toilets, sinks and showers (“Drip — it’s no good for me!”).
He was oddly detached. “It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” he said. Though it’s “a very dark era,” like “with Richard Nixon,” he added: “I’m having a good time.”
And he made his political opponents into monsters: “Band of thieves … do not like our military … witch hunts … maniacs …. betrayed the American people … socialism and blatant corruption.”
The impeached president took a night to sleep on it — or not — then spent Thursday morning in the White House, tweeting and retweeting a stew of insults, paranoia and threats.
“Democrats … will feel the almighty wrath of God!”
“No Nads Nadler needs to Shut the H3LL Up.”
“The Democrats are the ANTITHESIS of what it means to be an American.”
“Our Government was working … to overthrow an [sic] duly elected President!”
Ladies and gentlemen: the president of the United States?
House Republicans, taking their cue from Trump, made the impeachment debate an extravaganza of epithets. “Sham” was alleged 27 times, “charade” 19, “hoax” 11, “socialist” nine, “rigged” eight, “witch hunt” five, “fraudulent” and “star chamber” four apiece. The Republican leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), induced his colleagues to boo “the new Democrat Socialist base.”
The majority leader, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), asked what had become of the virtues of “decency, honesty, responsibility and, yes, even civility.” Republicans answered his speech with jeers, including when he mentioned a lawmaker drummed out of the GOP for supporting impeachment, Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), “who represents a Republican district.”
“Not for long!” one of the Republicans called out.
True. You can’t remain in Trump’s party if you acknowledge, as Amash did on the floor Wednesday, that Trump “abused and violated the public trust by using his high office to solicit the aid of a foreign power … for his personal and political gain. His actions reflect precisely the type of conduct the framers of the Constitution intended to remedy through the power of impeachment.”
If there was any agreement in the debate, it was that American democracy is teetering. Five lawmakers — three Democrats and two Republicans — invoked the same Benjamin Franklin quote that the Founders gave us “a Republic, if you can keep it.” The bipartisan consensus: We are in danger of losing it.
Trump tweeted and retweeted in sync about the phony HOAX pathetic SCAM charade WITCH HUNT dirty tricks PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT! And this: “Trump has not been impeached.”
Indeed, Trump spoke Wednesday night as if his opponents had been impeached: “Through their depraved actions today, crazy Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats have branded themselves with an eternal mark of shame.”
The day he died, John Dingell warned of such behavior. In reflections publishedposthumously in The Post, lamenting that “the presidential bully pulpit seems dedicated to sowing division and denigrating, often in the most irrelevant and infantile personal terms, the political opposition.” America achieved its 20th-century greatness, he said, when “we observed modicums of respect even as we fought.”
That is how to keep a Republic.
Being a role model for children requires being an adult, I think.
Donald Chump, IQ45, Child-Man in the Promised Land
Trump is mentally ill. There is nothing decent about him. He reacts like a child..one who has no manners.
What decent person complains in a speech about the inadequate flow of water in toilets and that dishwashers have lost their historic oomph. He bragged about how F-35 fighter pilots were even more handsome than the “Top Gun” actor Tom Cruise.
Trump is a danger to this country. IQ45 can’t stand any criticism and will, in my opinion, become more warped as time goes by. What will this crazy person with power do? What will he ask of his followers?
I am SO TIRED of Trump being labeled as mentally ill. He is EVIL. It’s an insult to mental illness to call him that. Please read this article, and stop denigrating those with mental illness by equating them to Trump. https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/18/opinions/trumps-letter-to-pelosi-begala/index.html
I am not putting down mentally ill people. [I had therapy for 5 years because of severe emotional and mental abuse from my mother. I had been situationally depressed for 10 years and was feeling physical pain from the repressions that had I used to exist.]
I’m saying that Trump is demented or suffering from Alzheimer’s. He has no knowledge to differentiate between truth and his own created version. He is also narcissistic. He is evil but he is also suffering from mental illness.
………………………………………
An article from Psychology Today:
“The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”
A new book delves into the president’s mental health.
One comment was from Hal Brown, MSW, a colleague of John Gartner, Ph.D., whom we mentioned in the post. John is the founder of Duty to Warn, an organization intent on warning our country that we are in dire trouble due to our president’s mental instability. More than 60,000 mental health professionals have signed John’s petition, which states:
“We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 4 of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is ‘unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.’”
“The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-time-cure/201709/the-dangerous-case-donald-trump?eml
Evil is something of a theological abstraction with which I am uncomfortable in most circumstances, and particularly where Donald Trump is concerned. I understand that psychology is a “soft” science, but it is a science nonetheless. We can use the evidence of his sordid conduct as a basis of comparison, then use the tools of the science–to wit, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V, not in its fifth iteration, hence the “V”) to determine what motivates this man–and what the hell is wrong with him.
By the way, carolmalaysia, I greatly appreciate you candor about your own experience with therapy. I don’t think it follows that by discussing Donald Trump’s bad mental health, anyone is stigmatizing people who suffer from mental illness.
I’m sorry. I get emotional about this, as I have been dealing with depression, OCD, and anxiety since I was six years old.
I just am sick of having my illness equated with the terrible things the Creep in Chief is doing.
I’m sorry for your struggle. I feel your pain.
Threatened Out West: I wish you well on your journey.
What I went through was very tough. I was told that most people wouldn’t have endured the full time of five years to complete what had to be covered.
I was very fortunate to have a therapist who only charged me $15 a session because I was a single parent teacher. When I got a pay raise, she upped it to $20 a session. The going rate at that time for professional therapy was $150 an hour. My therapist often would stay an hour and a half and we always met twice a week. Without her I really don’t know what would have happened. After 10 years of being depressed, I had reached my limit.
I do not take Trump’s mental illness personally. His own version of illness does not reflect on you or any other person who is struggling. You recognize your personal problems. Trump never will understand how cruel he is and believes that he is never wrong on anything. His mental mess is his own doing. He has no compassion and has the ability to hurt many people over and over and over again.
You are trying to improve. He never will.
Yes, Trump is an insane monster and his madness is like a viral disease spreading through his gang of deplorable.
The GOP is now the TPOP, Trump’s Party of Puppets … that are all cloned Charles Lee “Chucky” Rays from the Child’s Play slasher film franchise.
Keep your gunpowder dry.
Worst. President*. Ever.
He is just so brutally below the office in every imaginable respect it leaves one repeatedly sputtering in the wind…. People don’t have TDS they have TES -Trump Exhaustion Syndrome.
One of my Trump supporter friends was talking about how horrible Epstein was. [She was talking to another Trump supporter.] I thought, “What about the Orange Monster? He has grabbed around 20 women without their consent. Of course, when trump does something like this the response is always that the women were lying.
Trump told New York magazine in 2002, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said about his friend Jeffrey Epstein. Again, this was before all the charges were brought. In 2000, Trump was photographed with Epstein at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
It gets frustrating. Watching Fox is detrimental to the future of the US. Trump Exhaustion Syndrome is what the rest of us are getting.
Just a meta-comment of sorts here. I was struck yesterday by the sheer volume of information and opinion that Diane is able to marshal and analyze on this blog -and elsewhere. I’ve said before how much I’ve come to rely on this site. But it really hit me. How do you do it, Diane?
Having said that, sometimes I wish the information here was organized more in a Drudge Report sort of way -graphically. I love the comments, of course. But as we enter the next decade, I have to wonder if there’s a way to have all this great writing on here make more of a splash….to reach more people. Keep the information and comments…just organize it with more impact.
I don’t have a clue in terms of how that’s done in terms of computers etc….etc… I do understand it’s a job above and beyond one person. (Way beyond one person.) As I get closer and closer to retiring from the classroom, it’s the sort of thing I sometimes daydream about, like, hey, wouldn’t it be cool to volunteer to and do something like that? i.e. help out with something truly worthwhile that just doesn’t have time to get done.
Anyway, we’re wrapping up this decade and I have to say this site has been one of the best things I’ve found online or otherwise since 2010. (How many years it’s been ongoing I’m not quite sure. I have to go back and dig through some pages I printed out from here. Maybe I’ll do that when I get some vacation time next week.)
I do think this blog will be more important than ever as we head into this next, crazy election year.
Stay warm…the solstice is just around the corner.
Given the astonishing overall readership stats that Diane reports, there must be a LOT of readers of this blog who don’t comment. I share your gratitude for it. It’s great to have a source of education news that isn’t filtered through a Deformer/Disrupter fun house mirror. I wish that I could say the same of Education Week and Chalkbeat. Doubtless, both organizations have real journalists working for them, but one gets tired of the overall bias.
Bob captures the importance of the Diane Ravitch blog. It’s a place safe from billionaire rationalization for the harm they do to the communities of the middle class and poor. Diane’s blog has substantially more than 34,000,000 views. I presume someone reads what Frederick Hess writes in behalf of money takers but, comments to his posts are very rare.
John I’m totally with you on “the sheer volume of information and opinion that Diane is able to marshal and analyze on this blog -and elsewhere.” This blog is my daily newspaper. I’m not sure I’d want it organized otherwise. Like an IRL newspaper, the format forces me to peruse a huge variety of items I’d miss if I were searching a particular issue of interest. Even tho my Google News page is roughly tailored to my likes and dislikes, its order of presentation is trite & algorithmic. I find I don’t use it for much anymore except checking to see if something major happened overnight. Diane has a hungry mind and nudges us daily to open ours. Thank you, Diane!
Bethree,
Thank you! I share what interests me.
Thanks John.
I’m no good with graphics.
I ask my friend Gary Rubinstein to insert them when needed.
I post what interests me.
I’m a word person.
I believe in the power of words.
I Know that one picture is worth 1,000 words. But I’m a word person nonetheless.
John: Correct I all your observations about this site. Keeping the peace here has to be a major job.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2017/06/06/how-donald-trump-shifted-kids-cancer-charity-money-into-his-business/#4c14cc4c6b4a
One of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a long time is this one, starting at 8:26. It’s a mashup of the faces of reporters listening to Sean Spicer at Whiter House press conferences. This is freaking priceless!
Enjoyed that, Bob! For contrast, you need to see the incredible hosts as CSPAN’s daily call-in show, Wah Jnl. Absolutely zero betrayal of reaction as they listen to the gamut from wise to foolish.
Thanks, Bob. This is priceless.
Few Republicans care what Dana Milbank and the Washington Post think or say , but Christianity Today (a prominent Evangelical mag) now says Trump should be removed from office.
He won’t be, but the mere fact that at least some Evangelicals are abandoning the Trump Trawler (or maybe it’s Troller) is a question mark (albeit perhaps small) on Trump’s reelection bid.
This was, indeed, heartening.
The End Times
What’s this I hear?
The End Times are near?
The Fundies would dump
Their “do no wrong” Trump?
Is it surprising that evangelicals want Pence?
How about the political machines of the state Catholic Conferences and bishops?
Trump delivers for self-interested individuals. The Tennessee Catholic Public Policy Commission wrote the following statement about an Education Savings Account, a legislative bill they support. (The caps in the statement are those of the Commission. )
The bill “allows parents to use THEIR education tax dollars to customize their children’s education.” The Commission’s preceding pronouncement is, “We present, with one voice, the Church’s position …affecting the common good.”
Thanks for that tip, SDP, I read the editorial. It is a relief to hear a Christian publication actually discuss Trump from a Christiian POV. CSPAN Wash Jnl is about to discuss this w/Evangelical callers-in this a.m., should be interesting.
The Tide Turns on Trump, BIG TIME, from Christianity Today:
THIS is what will get Trump’s numbers to drop–and possible thrown out of office:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html
Trump Should Be Removed from Office | Christianity Today
In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump …
http://www.christianitytoday.com
SNIP “That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.
“To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?
“We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. . . . ”
CBK
Abortion
Abortion’s evil!
Bad, and how!
Abort our leader!
Do it now!
WWBGS (What would Billy Graham say?,)
What would Billy say?
Were he alive today —
About the Donald Trump?
Would he advise to dump?
Or would he stay the course
With li’l or no remorse?
And tell us “Keep the Faith
Despite what Donald sayeth”?
And, the other, more politically influential, half of the theocracy partnership?
State Catholic Conferences and bishops have political machines and media. Do they like America’s current, “most pro-faith President in history”, better than Pence?
Do they dislike the Democratic candidates like Elizabeth Warren, who the Catholic League described as having an education plan that harms the poor? Or, do they think DeVos’ plans “help the poor”, Trump’s free market/oligarch cabinet honors Christ, and, the authoritarian GOP funders enhance democracy and advance humanity?
The collective wisdom at this blog (coastal pundits?) is that evangelicals may get Trump “thrown from office”? The predicating factors are the Koch-owned Trump cabinet, the Supreme Court and, the GOP senators who could vote Trump out of office each listen to evangelicals not, big campaign donors. And, in 2020, evangelicals will abandon the GOP?
Consider an interesting match up,… evangelicals say Trump has to go. Wealthy libertarians, prosperity Catholics and Jews say Trump has to stay.
Jews were the white ethnic group that voted overwhelming Democrat in 2016. I believe the only one. In other words, while the majority of white Americans of all religions voted for Trump, the majority of Jews did not. A hateful man spewing hate is not appealing to most Jews just because he says he is “pro-Israel”.
That’s not to say there aren’t some individual Jews who do support Trump. But Trump supporters are a relatively small percentage of American Jews. They are a much higher percentage of those who call themselves Evangelical Christians. If Evangelical Christians supported Trump in the same percentage that Jews do, Trump would be defeated and so would the entire Republican Congress. So hopefully a Christianity Today editorial will influence at least some Evangelicals to turn away from Trump.
I think the Jewish vote was 72-75% anti-Trump.
“The collective wisdom at this blog (coastal pundits?)”
There are quite a few who are not “coastal” unless you consider living on the North Bank of the Missouri River in that river’s namesake state as being coastal for one example.
It may be of interest to Presidential campaigns whether it is more likely that evangelicals (and, in what numbers) abandon the GOP or, if regaining the 8% of white Catholics who left Dems. between 2008 and 2016 is more likely. (Although, there is no sign of the lifting of the taboo on the discussion of Catholic voting.) I suppose the answer depends, in part, on which group has more humanity and, is more offended by Trump.
In prior threads and more recent post threads, commenters implied Catholics are smarter and more morally consistent than evangelicals. So, I would have put my money on a Catholic voter change, despite the relatively new political machine of the Catholic church.
As a Dem., I have expressed appreciation at this blog for the overwhelming Jewish vote for Clinton and criticism for the Trump support from prosperity Jews. However, the relative size of the population makes their impact in the electoral college, small.
Putin, who sows distention in the U.S. has avoided religion. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the religious alliance that elects Republicans?
what are “prosperity Jews”? Is that a typo? You used that phrase in your earlier post about this.
NYC public school parent: I’m guessing, but wouldn’t Jared and Ivanka, slum lords in Baltimore who are only looking for more money and have no morals, be members of the ‘prosperity Jews’?
Campbell Brown and her husband, et. al.
Justification of convenience- Israel.
“prosperity Jews”? I still don’t get it.
Don’t you know the biggest bogeyman to the Republicans is George Soros, who is Jewish and also very, very rich?
Seriously, I don’t get this at all. There are certainly Republican Jews but some of them are the poor yeshiva-educated Jews who vote for Republicans.
A huge majority of Jews vote for Democrats, not Republicans, regardless of their support of Israel or their bank accounts.
NYC: . . . and Nancy Pelosi is a Catholic. CBK
Here is Franklin Graham’s response:
My Response to Christianity Today:
Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be removed from office—and they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements), so I feel it is important for me to respond. Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed. I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.
For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable. Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the President. I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians. If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him. But the Democrats were not even unanimous—two voted against impeachment and one voted present. This impeachment was politically motivated, 100% partisan. Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left whose only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president? They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the President of the United States.
Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time. The economy of our nation is the strongest it has been in 50 years, ISIS & the caliphate have been defeated, and the President has renegotiated trade deals to benefit all Americans. The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important—and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that, to say it doesn’t count? The President has been a staunch defender of religious freedom at home and around the world—and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Also the President has appointed conservative judges in record number—and Christianity today wants us to ignore that? Christianity Today feels he should be removed from office because of false accusations that the President emphatically denies.
Christianity Today said it’s time to call a spade a spade. The spade is this—Christianity Today has been used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism.
Is President Trump guilty of sin? Of course he is, as were all past presidents and as each one of us are, including myself. Therefore, let’s pray for the President as he continues to lead the affairs of our nation.
Sad.
YEP!
Duane E Swacker: Franklin Graham is someone who lacks a moral center. Saying that Trump should be forgiven because all sinners are forgiven is a lazy cop-out.
As Galli noted, there is no longer any way to avoid acknowledging Trump’s moral and temperamental unfitness for the presidency.
Just a first-time thought, but if all sinners are forgiven why are so many of them going to end up in hell?
This quote from the Bible sounds like it is describing Donald Trump. Did God know about Trump six thousand years ago?
Revelation 21:8
“But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
I LOVE Borowitz!!
……………………..
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, “The Borowitz Report.”
Andrew Johnson Horrified That History Books Will Mention Him in Same Sentence as Trump
By Andy Borowitz,
The New Yorker
20 December 19
In a rare public statement from beyond the grave, Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of the United States, said that he was “horrified” that history books will now mention him in the same sentence as Donald J. Trump.
Making his first utterance since he died, in 1875, the spectral Johnson said, “As someone who has actually experienced death, I can safely say that being mentioned in the same breath as Trump is a fate worse than that.”“
I could deal with history remembering me as the first U.S. President to be impeached,” he said. “But knowing that I will now appear in the first line of Trump’s obituary is, to put it mildly, devastating.”
“What have I done to deserve this?” Johnson asked.
Although being linked with Trump for eternity was “something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” Johnson conceded that there was a silver lining to Trump’s Presidency.“Finally, I’m no longer considered the worst President in history,” he said.
I tried to post an article on
Trump Enraged by Rebuke of Evangelicals
and WordPress wouldn’t allow it.
It came from the New Yorker and was an interview with the editor of Christianity of Christianity Today.
WordPress blocked you from posting on your own Blog that you pay for?
Lloyd Lofthouse: I [carolmalaysia] tried to post an interview and WordPress absolute refused to all me to do that. I tried different wordings about 4 times and each time got a sentence something like, “This is not allowed.”
From newyorker.com: Why the Editor of Christianity Today Decided to Rebuke Trump
Mark Galli, the author of an editorial titled “Trump Should Be Removed from Office,” is part of the cohort of evangelical leaders and commentators who have been critical of the President.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-the-editor-of-christianity-today-decided-to-rebuke-trump
But was it “your” blog that you paid for through WordPress?
If it was a free blog through WordPress, they probably retain the right to censor anything their algorithm catches.
I have four blogs through Wordrpess but I own the domain names and pay annual fees to blog using WordPress but my Blogs’ internet addresses do not include WordPress in the http links. WordPress had never intervened with any of the posts I have published and I have published thousands.
Lloyd Lofthouse: I don’t understand why I couldn’t post the article earlier today and now it is being accepted. As Diane says, WorldPress is strange.
WordPress is strange. Remember during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings,no one could post a comment that contained his last name.
Poor Trump. He works SO hard watching Fox, eating, Twittering and talking on the phone. No wonder he has to waste over $118 million of taxpayer money.
………………………………………..
Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Winter Vacation Pushes Taxpayer Golf Tab Above $118 million
12/21/2019
Trump criticized predecessor Barack Obama for spending too much time playing golf — but is on track to pass Obama’s eight-year total in just four years.
President Donald Trump has pushed his taxpayer-funded golf tab past $118 million on his 26th visit to Mar-a-Lago, his for-profit resort in Palm Beach, Florida, with a Saturday visit to his course in neighboring West Palm Beach.
The new total is the equivalent of 296 years of the $400,000 presidential salary that his supporters often boast that he is not taking.
And of that $118.3 million, at least several million has gone into Trump’s own cash registers, as Secret Service agents, White House staff and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses.
…Trump’s costs are so much higher than Obama’s because Trump insists on playing golf at his own courses — primarily in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Florida — during which he greets and spends time with paying club members whose dues continue to enrich him. Each trip to Bedminster costs taxpayers about $1.1 million, while each Mar-a-Lago trip costs about $3.4 million. Trump has also visited his courses in Los Angeles; Doral, Florida; Turnberry, Scotland; and Doonbeg, Ireland — all on the taxpayer dime.
In contrast, while Obama typically took expensive vacations twice a year — one to Martha’s Vineyard and one to his home state of Hawaii — the vast majority of his golf outings were to courses on military bases a short drive from the White House.
Trump’s trip to Turnberry in 2018 cost taxpayers an extra $3 million beyond what it would have cost had he remained in London prior to his summit in Helsinki with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His trip to Ireland this summer cost taxpayers $3.6 million more than if he’d simply returned to Washington following his visit to London and Normandy, France.
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-again-mar-a-lago-118-million_n_5dfe5f85e4b05b08bab65fad?ncid=engmodushpmg00000006
Trump waves the economy in our faces–the other half of the story is that the economy is standing on an out-of-control deficit that rivals the size of his ego. CBK
I went to workshops that were held at the Jakarta International School. This is creepy. I wasn’t sure where to post this article. I figure it fits in with Trump’s demagoguery.
Jakarta Intercultural School, formerly the Jakarta International School, is a private, international school in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was established in 1951 for expatriate students living in Jakarta and is the largest international primary and secondary school in Indonesia.
………………………….
A Test for Foreign Teachers in Indonesia: Are You Gay?
Under a government regulation, teachers at some international schools face intrusive questions aimed at identifying those with “abnormal” sexual orientations.
The teacher-testing requirement was adopted after a contentious 2014 case in which a Canadian educator and six Indonesians were accused of sexually abusing young students at the prestigious Jakarta International School.
All seven were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms on the basis of preposterous evidence, including that the Canadian, Neil Bantleman, used magical powers to seduce the children and render the crime scenes invisible. He was granted clemency in June and freed after serving five years…
This was at the Jakarta International School. Good grief.
………………………………..
Indonesia Frees Canadian Accused of Using Magical Powers to Abuse Children
Neil Bantleman, whose conviction was based on claims that he had used magical powers to seduce children, was granted clemency after years in prison and permitted to return home.
The allegations were initially brought by the mother of a 6-year-old boy who said that he had been sexually abused at school.
During questioning, the boy told the police that Mr. Bantleman had kept him from feeling pain during attacks by inserting a “magic stone” in his anus, and that Mr. Bantleman had conjured the stone from the sky. No stone was ever presented as evidence…