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Orlando Sentinel on Trump’s Gaza Fantasy: Is He Unhinged or Has He Gone Mad?”

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2025 //
10

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board published a scathing editorial about Trump’s ridiculous idea of evicting the people of Gaza and turning their land into a luxury resort.

It said:

No president ever proposed anything so unhinged as Donald Trump’s brutal fantasy of evicting some 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and turning it into a massive real estate deal.
Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” is so drastic, wrong and delusional as to make people wonder whether he was serious or had just gone mad. It was obvious he hadn’t thought it through.

His apologists scrambled unconvincingly to make sense of it. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the former Florida congressman, suggested that it was a negotiating gambit.

Trump, he said, was simply challenging Arab nations “to come with their own solutions” if they don’t like his. We appreciate that Waltz — a generally rational man with deep experience in Middle East politics — has to shoulder the burden of trying to make Trump’s erratic proclamations seem rational. (He was also the person shoved out front after Trump made the outlandish claim that a deadly plane crash was somehow caused by DEI.)

But to fulfill his role as a trusted vizier to the Oval Office, Waltz should give Trump the unvarnished truth: This kind of bizarre behavior — sincere or not — is not helping.

It’s more likely to encourage Israel to make life in Gaza even more hellish and desperate, further destabilizing Israel’s own security at a time when the current administration is likely to see U.S. equivocation as a go-ahead for more aggression.

Vintage Trump

Trump surprised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who ventured that the displacement would be only temporary. But that’s not what Trump said.
It was, of course, vintage Trump in one respect. His entire life has been transactional, so it would be in character for him to see the tragedy, fear and hopelessness in Gaza as just another opportunity for Trump-branded hotels and casinos.

Even if it ends up as just a pipe dream, however, it’s hardly harmless.

It has subverted the already distant prospect of a Mideast peace. It caters to the current Israeli government’s worst instincts. It repudiates decades of U.S. policy and world opinion favoring a two-state solution with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. There is no other road to peace.

It has put the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza at greater risk by giving Hamas a potential pretext to renounce the ceasefire.

Stoking antisemitism

And it is certain to further inflame antisemitism in the United States and elsewhere.

Trump has mortified the nation and our government by exposing his gross ignorance of what a president should know about international law and the tangled history of the Middle East.

He should have known that it would be unthinkable for Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia ever to agree to it.

He should have known that it would be regarded everywhere as ethnic cleansing, a form of genocide comparable to what happened to the Armenians during World War I.

He should have known, but didn’t care, that Gaza’s civilians, as one said, “would rather live in tents next to their destroyed homes rather than relocate to another place.”
Worldwide condemnation

Criticism was swift and worldwide. Even Russia, right for once, called it “out of the question.”
In the U.S. Congress, most reaction ranged from speechlessness to consternation, especially over the inevitable involvement of U.S. troops.

Trump’s plan delighted the Israeli right wing at the cost of additionally compromising the Jewish state. He validated the suspicion that ethnic cleansing was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent from the outset.

Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, such as the racist Knesset member Itmar Ben-Gvir, have been open about purging Gaza of Palestinians.

“The only solution to Gaza is to encourage the migration of Gazans,” Ben-Gvir said.

White House optics


It was no coincidence that Trump sprung the scheme at the White House with Netanyahu by his side, or that the Israeli wore a red tie — Trump’s signature color — while Trump wore blue, which is symbolic of Israel.


Many believe that what Ben-Gvir said has been the strategy all along behind the excessive bombing that took thousands of civilian lives and damaged or destroyed some 60% of Gaza’s buildings, waterworks and other essential infrastructure, along with more than two-thirds of its farmland.

But Israel would never be able to deport more than 2 million people without U.S. support. That’s what makes Trump’s remarks so reckless.
The head of the Zionist Organization of America endorsed Trump’s repugnant scheme. Jewish groups that are more broad-minded and sensible reacted with concern over the fate of the hostages and revulsion at the entire idea.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal lobby J Street, said “there aren’t adequate words to express our disgust at the forcible displacement of Palestinians with the assistance of the United States of America. … We call on leaders around the world, political leaders in this country, and, of course, Jewish communal leaders in this country to express in no uncertain terms that these proposals are absolutely unacceptable — legally and morally.”

It took less than three weeks back in the Oval Office for Trump to commit a monumental foreign policy blunder. He probably won’t admit it, but he desperately needs the advice that cooler heads like Rubio, and wiser, more grounded experts like Waltz, can impart. It’s their duty, by the very nature of their roles and their duty to the American people as well as the cause of global peace, to figure out a way to get him to listen.

And if that fails, it’s past time for Congress to do something about him, starting with a resolution of disapproval. It bears remembering: Silence is consent.


The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive  Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
© 2025 Orlando Sentinel

Categories Ignorance, Insane, International, Shame, Stupid, Trump

Trump Demands $500 Billion in “Rare Earth” Minerals in Exchange for Supporting Ukraine

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2025 //
15

In his interview with Brett Baier on FOX News, Trump revealed that he is making a deal with Ukraine in exchange for our continuing to support their fight against Russian aggression. He demands control and ownership of Ukraine’s natural resources. He says Zelensky agreed.

Imagine Trump as president when World War II begins. Winston Churchill begs him to help stave off Hitler s attacks. Europe is being overrun. Bombs are hitting central London. Churchill calls Trump and pleads for help, for arms and men. Trump says, “What’s in it for us?” Whatever Churchill offers is not enough. Trump says, “We will sit this one out.” Hitler overruns Europe and England, as Trump watches from afar.

We entered the war to protect Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia. Ukraine was striving to join the West, to join the European Union, perhaps even NATO. President Biden thought it was in our national interest to prevent Putin from conquering a country that aspired to be a democracy. Most of the arms shipped to Ukraine were made in America; no American troops were deployed. It made sense to stop Putin’s aggression. It never occurred to Biden or his State Department to demand a price from a nation that was suffering daily from massive bombardments that wiped out schools, hospitals, transportation, the electrical grid, apartment buildings, museums, and whole cities, as well as thousands of innocent civilians.

Politico has the story. No paywall.

American support for Ukraine has a price tag: $500B worth of mineral riches, said U.S. President Donald Trump.

In the second part of an interview with Fox News that aired late Monday, the Republican said the U.S. should get a slice of Ukraine’s vast natural resources as compensation for the hundreds of billions it has spent on helping Kyiv resist Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“I told them [Ukraine] that I want the equivalent like $500B worth of rare earth. And they’ve essentially agreed to do that so at least we don’t feel stupid,” Trump said.

“Otherwise, we’re stupid. I said to them we have to — ‘we have to get something. We can’t continue to pay this money,’” he added.

Ukraine holds huge deposits of critical elements and minerals, from lithium to titanium, which are vital to manufacturing modern technologies. It also has vast coal reserves, as well as oil, gas and uranium, but much of this is in territories under Russian control.

Categories Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, For-Profit, International, Trump

Trump Reiterates His Plan to “Own” Gaza and Turn It into a Resort

By dianeravitch
February 10, 2025 //
13

According to The Boston Globe, Trump doubled down on his intention to take control of Gaza, expel its inhabitants, and develop the Gaza Strip into a luxurious resort: The Riviera of the Middle East. He said that the Palestinians who live there would not have the right to return.

This statement is making Egypt and Jordan angry, because they have refused to accept the Palestinian Gazans for fear of Hamas terrorists on their soil. It also emboldens Netanyahu and his most extreme supporters, and it threatens to upend the ceasefire and hostage releases.

Where Trump goes, chaos goes with him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Palestinians in Gaza would not have a right to return under his plan for U.S. “ownership” of the war-torn territory, contradicting other officials in his administration who have sought to argue Trump was only calling for the temporary relocation of its population.

Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it in “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with FOX News’ Bret Baier that was set to air on Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland.

“We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”

Categories Disruption, International, Trump

Trump’s Plan to Redevelop Gaza Reflects His History in Real Estate

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2025 //
9

Trump shocked almost everyone when he said in a press conference, alongside Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu, that he wanted to take control of Gaza, move out the Gazan population, clear the rubble, and turn the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

In response to worldwide condemnation, his aides tried to “walk back” what he said, but he said out loud what he believes. He is dangerous at all times, because no one knows for sure what he will say or do. His press secretary said that the U.S. would not pay for what Trump wants to do, nor would it send troops. In that case, Trump’s bold statement was a nothing burger. But anyone who saw the news conference heard what he said. Since he lies the way other people breathe, everyone is left to believe whatever they want.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had been thinking about this idea for a while and discussing it with aides. Some analysts thought his proposal was a negotiating ploy, meant for shock value. Others think he’s serious.

WASHINGTON—President Trump campaigned on shrinking America’s role abroad. But since taking office, he has articulated a worldview that is at times closer to expansionism than isolationism.

Trump generated global shock waves Tuesday when he said the U.S. should take long-term control of Gaza, suggesting that Palestinians should be relocated while the enclave is rebuilt into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media that Trump would “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”

Taking control of the hotly contested territory would put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most complicated diplomatic and national-security conflicts, raising the prospect that Trump is signing the country up for exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid. Trump didn’t rule out sending American troops to Gaza to accomplish his goals.

“The old Republican Party of RINOs, neocons and globalists is gone. And it is never coming back,” Trump said at a 2023 GOP dinner in Florida. As he prepared to take office, Trump made clear that he wouldn’t hire national security officials that he deemed to be too closely associated with traditional neoconservative values. 

Tuesday’s announcement marked a striking shift for Trump, who described the Middle East as “blood and sand” in his first term, according to a longtime adviser. Trump is now proposing to rebuild Gaza, which his own aides say could take 10 to 15 years.

Two Trump administration officials said the idea of the Gaza takeover was formed recently, with the president running it by aides and allies in recent days. The proposal was closely held, other administration officials who work on Middle East issues said. Officials outside of Trump’s inner circle weren’t aware the idea was on the table during days of planning for the meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump’s proposal stunned even some of his most ardent and influential supporters in the Jewish community. A longtime pro-Israel Trump fundraiser who has raised money for the president for years called the idea “insane” and questioned how it could be executed, noting this type of policy would likely take well over a year to complete with too many unknown variables for it to be done smoothly.

Netanyahu said during the press conference that one of his key goals was to ensure Gaza wouldn’t host terrorists again. Trump, he continued, took that concept “to a much higher level.”

“It is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue….”

Trump’s Gaza proposal also shows that the president is leaning on his long history as a businessman and real-estate developer, viewing the world as a canvas in which to expand America’s influence—and cement his legacy…

Glimmers of Trump’s thinking on Gaza have surfaced in public and in private.

“You know, Gaza’s interesting, it’s a phenomenal location, on the sea, the best weather. Everything’s good. Some beautiful things could be done with it,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 20, after being sworn in. A reporter asked if he would help with rebuilding. “I might,” Trump said….

In late summer, Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call that the Gaza Strip was a prime piece of real estate and asked him to think about what kinds of hotels could be built there, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. But he didn’t mention the U.S. taking it over. He also told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this fall that Ukraine would be a good spot for real-estate development, particularly mentioning the city of Odesa, a person present during the discussion said….

Trump made a similar case to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first term, hoping the allure of hotels and development along the country’s coastlines would encourage Kim to dismantle his nuclear arsenal.

Categories Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, International, Stupid, Trump

Musk Team Was Not Honest About Their Goal, Wanted to Cut Off Foreign Aid

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2025 //
23

The New York Times reported that the Musk team was not transparent about its intrusion into the Treasury payment system. It said that it was just “reviewing,” but its real goal was to close down payments for foreign aid. You know, the money that sends American grain to starving people and that supplies medicine and care to desperate people in places like Africa and India.

Forgive the circumlocutions, but I keep looking for polite ways to say they lied. They weren’t there to do a quick Look-see. There were there to stop payments to USAID. They believed that Trump’s executive order overrode the laws. If that were the case, then the U.S. would truly be a dictstorship, where Trump held total power.

For some reason, Trump and Musk hate helping impoverished people, especially if they are not white.

In the days after President Trump took office, as Elon Musk’s team began pressing for access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, officials repeatedly said that their goal was to undertake a general review of the system. They said they would observe, but not stop money from going out the door.

But emails reviewed by The New York Times show that the Treasury’s chief of staff originally pushed for Tom Krause, a software executive affiliated with Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, to receive access to the closely held payment system so that the Treasury could freeze U.S. Agency for International Development payments.

In a Jan. 24 email to a small group of Treasury officials, the chief of staff, Dan Katz, wrote that Mr. Krause and his team needed access to the system so they could pause U.S.A.I.D. payments and comply with Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order to halt foreign aid.

“To the extent permitted by law, we would like to implement the pause as soon as possible in order to ensure that we are doing our role to comply with the EO,” Mr. Katz wrote.

The emails viewed by The Times undercut the Treasury’s explanation for why Mr. Krause and his team were given access to the payment system last week. That system disburses more than $5 trillion in funding on behalf of much of the federal government.

The department, now led by Secretary Scott Bessent, has said that Mr. Krause, a Treasury staff member, and his team are conducting an “operational efficiency assessment” that does not involve blocking agency payments.

The possibility of systems at the Treasury’s little-known Bureau of the Fiscal Service being used to stop congressionally authorized spending has stoked alarm among Democrats, who have called for investigations and led protests at the Treasury building.

David Lebryk, formerly the top career official at the Treasury, rebuffed the request to grant access and pause the aid payments.

“I don’t believe we have the legal authority to stop an authorized payment certified by an agency,” he wrote to the group on Jan. 24. Mr. Lebryk, who had been a federal employee for more than 35 years, was pushed out of his job days later for refusing to give Mr. Krause access to the system. Late on Jan. 31, a Friday, Mr. Bessent authorized entry for a team led by Mr. Krause after Mr. Lebryk’s departure.

All of this is illegal. Congress is responsible for funding.

Categories International, Lies, Musk, Elon, Trump

Trump Wants Greenland, Canada, and Now, Gaza?

By dianeravitch
February 5, 2025 //
35

There have always been reasons to worry about Trump’s mental acuity–his sense of grandiosity, his constant boasting, his memory lapses, his serial lies, his frequent confusion of names–but now there is more reason to worry.

Yesterday he said in a press conference that he wants all the people who live in the Gaza Strip to move somewhere else, leaving their land to be cleared and developed by Americans. Trump wants to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” A few years back, his son-in-law Jared Kushner speculated that Gaza’s beachfront made it ideal as a setting for luxury resorts.

Jared has since moved on to other promising spots, like Albania, where he plans to build a $1.4 billion luxury mega-resort on an island, investing some of the billions that the Saudis gave him.

Apparently, Trump’s basic instincts as a developer have come to the fore. Aside from the fact that Arab nations are opposed to Trump’s plan, there is one obvious problem: What to do with the Gazans who live there? He hasn’t figured that out yet, and to date the other Arab nations have loudly said that they don’t want the Gazans.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stood with Trump and loved what he heard. It bolsters him with his rightwing coalition partners, according to the Israeli publication Ha’aretz, and bolsters his intransigence. How he would love to have an American-owned strip of land on his borders.

Trump doesn’t want to help rebuild Gaza; he wants to own it.

Dana Milbank paid attention.

Milbank wrote:

“Genocide Joe” never looked so good.

Gaza peace protesters rallied Americans by the hundreds of thousands to oppose President Joe Biden and vote “uncommitted” in Democratic primaries. They heckled Vice President Kamala Harris and disrupted her events.

On Election Day, Donald Trump prevailed in the majority-Arab town of Dearborn, Michigan. And across the country, many young voters stayed home or even voted for Trump — likely because, in part, they were disenchanted that the Biden administration had been insufficiently tough on Israel.

How’s that working out now?

Trump, hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, made the stunning declaration that he wants all Palestinians removed from Gaza — permanently.

“All of them,” Trump said. “I mean, we’re talking about probably a million-seven people, a million-seven, maybe a million-eight. But I think all of them. I think they’ll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day.”

And what would become of Gaza after all Palestinians were evicted? At a formal news conference with Netanyahu in the East Room a couple of hours later, Trump unveiled his next proposal: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip. … We’ll own it.”

Huh?

“You are talking tonight about the U.S. taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that?” an incredulous Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News asked. “Are you talking about a permanent occupation?”

“I do see a long-term ownership position,” Trump answered, as though the Palestinian enclave were a hotel property on the market. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”

Greenland, Panama, Canada and now Gaza: The sun will never set on Trump’s colonial empire.

A moment later, the president said he was also considering evicting the Palestinians from the West Bank and awarding that territory to Israel.

“We’re discussing that,” Trump said when asked about giving Israel control over biblical “Judea and Samaria,” which includes the West Bank. “And people do like the idea.” He promised an announcement “on that very specific topic over the next four weeks.”

From the river to the sea, Palestine will cease to exist. As those uncommitted voters now know: Elections have consequences.

Trump’s elimination of all Palestinian land went even farther than Netanyahu’s expansionist designs — but the prime minister liked what he heard. “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level,” he said at Tuesday’s news conference. “I think it’s something that could change history and it’s worth us really pursuing this.” Netanyahu took multiple opportunities to bash Biden and to gush over Trump for sending him weapons that Biden had withheld, and for lifting Biden’s sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank.

Trump was proposing an act of towering cruelty. The world still hasn’t figured out what to do about the existing Palestinian refugees — 1.5 million of whom live in refugee camps in the region. Now, Trump plans to make refugees of some 2 million additional Palestinians. Or perhaps 5 million more, if he’s also planning to evict them from the West Bank.

But Trump presented his plans to remove Palestinians from their homeland as a humanitarian gesture. “Gaza is not a place for people to be living,” he reasoned during his Oval Office session. Though he hasn’t actually visited the place, “I’ve seen every picture from every angle, better than if I were there. And nobody can live there.”

Journalists reported the story as if this was a realistic proposal by the American President. But it is not. It’s madness. It violates international laws (but we know by now that Trump thinks he is not constrained by law.) It is raw imperialism and colonialism. It is wildly impractical. It is the proposal of a man who is unhinged, out of touch with reality: a madman. We always have known that Trump creates chaos wherever he goes. The only thing more absurd that he neglected to mention is that the Trump Organization would get the contract to clear and rebuild the Riviera of the Middle East.

Categories Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, International, Trump

“Dear Mr. Trump: I Love Your Plan for the United States of Canada!”

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2025 //
37

John Manley was a deputy prime minister and minister of finance in Jean Chrétien’s government in Canada.

He loves Trump’s idea of uniting Canada and the United States. Democrats should love it too. Republicans would never again win the presidency!

“I am so excited about this, Mr. Trump – I can already see the 60 little maple leaves on the flag with 13 stripes!”

His article appeared in The Globe & Mail, a major newspaper in Canada.

Dear Donald Trump,

My mentor and former boss, prime minister Jean Chrétien, has dismissed your suggestion that Canada and the U.S. merge.

Don’t despair. My point of view differs somewhat from his (sorry, Boss). I think we may be able to make this work if Canadians fully understand your proposal.

Imagine what the “United States of Canada” could be. We would marry American ingenuity and entrepreneurship to Canada’s natural resources, underdog toughness and culture of self-effacing politeness to create a powerful, world-dominating country.

We would be the largest land mass in the world. We would be self-reliant in every respect (food, energy, minerals, water). We would attract the world’s most talented people. We would truly be “the best country in the world,” to use Mr. Chrétien’s words, and would dominate international hockey competitions. Your idea is truly brilliant.

As you know from your corporate experience, for any successful merger, the devil is in the details, but I have some suggestions.

First, Canada could never simply be the 51st state. Canada consists of 10 states (we call them “provinces”) and three territories. Each of our provinces exists for historical reasons and citizens feel a deep loyalty to their province.

So we would need to be the 51st to 60th states. With two senators for each state, of course. Our 20 senators will no doubt bring fresh ideas to the institution that will help make the United States of Canada truly great!

Some issues that cause division and frustration in your country are considered settled by political parties of all stripes in Canada, so I suggest adopting Canadian consensus in the interest of making this deal work.

For example, there is no argument in Canada over women’s reproductive rights. There! That hot-button issue is resolved for you! (You can thank me later.)

All Canadian politicians support our single-payer health care system because no one is refused treatment for their inability to pay and no one goes broke because they suffer a catastrophic illness. In effect, all of our citizens have lifetime critical illness insurance provided by the government. And while it’s expensive, our system costs considerably less than yours, with 100 per cent of the population covered! Your citizens will love it, I promise.

I would also observe that Canadians have long preferred to live with many fewer firearms than are tolerated in the United States. The result is a drastically lower rate of deaths and injuries caused by gun violence in Canada. Our gun laws would make the country safer than it is, and safer is definitely greater!

We have some other innovations that you may wish to consider. Our Canada Pension Plan, equivalent to your Social Security, is fully funded and actuarially sound. This requires higher contributions, but it pays off with solvency. I believe your Social Security runs out of money in the near future. (That’s not great, is it?)

Lower personal income taxes paid in the U.S. are a great attraction. But our programs to support both seniors and young families to reduce the worst cases of poverty among them help make society more cohesive and fair. That’s one of the reasons our taxes have been higher.

Oh, and we must consider how we fund government expenses. We’re struggling to bring our deficit back down, but it wasn’t that long ago (2015) that our budget was effectively balanced. In fact, for more than a decade prior to the global financial crisis, Canada ran surplus budgets. In addition to spending discipline, our national value-added tax, the GST, was key. You definitely want to adopt that! In fact, you will love it! (Canadians don’t love it, but their governments do. And it beats borrowing money from the Chinese.)

There are many smaller details that I am sure we can work out. You will enjoy the simplicity of the metric system for weights and measures, for example. Oh, but we’re not crazy, you can keep yards for football! And you will love that sport even more when you play it on a bigger field with only three downs.

I am so excited about this, Mr. Trump. You are truly a visionary leader to have come up with this idea. I can already see the 60 little maple leaves on the flag with 13 stripes! I am ready to throw myself into this great project of making the United States of Canada great again! (Oh, that’s too long. Let’s just call our new country “Canada.”)

Respectfully, as I dislodge my tongue from my cheek,

John Manley

Categories Democracy, Humor, Innovation, International, Trump

AP: Senior Taliban Official Calls for Removing Ban on Women’s Education

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2025 //
6

The AP reported on a promising development. A Taliban leader says that girls and women should be allowed to get an education. But don’t celebrate until there is an actual policy change.

A senior Taliban figure has urged the group’s leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy. 

Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on Saturday in southeastern Khost province. 

He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn’t be one at all.”

The government has barred females from education after sixth grade. Last September, there were reports authorities had also stopped medical training and courses for women.

In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals. Authorities have yet to confirm the medical training ban.

“We call on the leadership again to open the doors of education,” said Stanikzai in a video shared by his official account on the social platform X. “We are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a population of 40 million, depriving them of all their rights. This is not in Islamic law, but our personal choice or nature.” 

Stanikzai was once the head of the Taliban team in talks that led to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. 

It is not the first time he has said that women and girls deserve to have an education. He made similar remarks in September 2022, a year after schools closed for girls and months and before the introduction of a university ban.

Think about it: in Afghanistan, women can be treated only by female doctors, but women are not permitted to study beyond sixth grade. How can women get any healthcare if women are not allowed to study and become doctors?

Don’t the Taliban care about the well-being of their mothers, their sisters, their daughters?

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Gender, International

Trump Says He Understands Why Putin Does not Want Ukraine to Join NATO

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2025 //
3

Reuters reports that Trump sympathizes with Putin’s desire to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Presumably that sentiment justifies Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago and its destruction of homes, schools, churches, the power grid, hospitals, and entire towns and cities.

As usual, Trump can be counted on to defend his dear friend Putin. He is indeed Putin’s puppet. Trump probably doesn’t know that Finland and Sweden shed their neutrality and joined NATO after Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump is sad that he won’t have a chance to meet his good buddy Vlad before Inauguration Day.

Reuters reported:

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he sympathized with the Russian position that Ukraine should not be part of NATO, and he lamented that he will not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before his inauguration.

Speaking at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump also blamed outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden for allegedly changing the U.S. position on NATO membership for Ukraine…

Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have officially expressed support for Ukraine’s eventual membership since the Bucharest Summit of 2008, and the Biden administration continues to support Ukraine’s eventual NATO accession, though Ukraine has never been extended an invitation.

Trump’s aides and allies generally oppose NATO membership for Ukraine, at least in the foreseeable future, seeing it as an unnecessary provocation toward Moscow.

Sure, why provoke Putin unnecessarily? He might go to war. Uh. He did.

What will Trump do and say if Putin invades Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia? They are already members of NATO. Putin has said that he wants to rebuild the Soviet empire. He’s a big man. We can’t offend him.

Categories Cruelty, Evil, Extremism, International

This Boston Teacher Helped Restore Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris!

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2024 //
7

What a great story!

Michael Burry, a woodworking teacher at a private trade school in Boston, had the thrill of working on the restoration of Notre Dame. The Roth Bennett Street School was founded in 1881 to teach immigrants the skills they needed to get gainful employment. Today, it operates as a school to teach hand crafts like violin making, bookbinding, and furniture making.

How did an American earn the great privilege of working on the restoration of Notre Dame? Read on.

Michael Burrey, a teacher at North Bennet Street School, recently worked on the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris. DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

Billy Baker of The Boston Globe reported:

In 2019, as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was burning, Michael Burrey was 3,000 miles away, in the North End of Boston, watching the television coverage with his students and asking himself a question: What can we do to help?

It’s a thought many people had. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of individual donors would contribute toward the cathedral’s reconstruction. But Burrey was in a unique position — he’s an expert in medieval carpentry who spent 11 years as an interpretive artisan at what was formerly called Plimoth Plantation, and he is currently a teacher at the North Bennet Street School, one of the country’s leading traditional trade schools.

The spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral collapsed as the landmark was engulfed in flames in central Paris on April 15, 2019.AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Soon Burrey would begin a journey that would end with him becoming one of just a handful of American artisans to work on the French team that completed a stunning reconstruction of one of the world’s great cultural artifacts.

“It’s the pinnacle of my career,” Burrey said recently, following the grand reopening of the cathedral on Dec. 8. “I have such great appreciation for being able to be a part of the group effort that demonstrated that the traditional trades that built Notre Dame 800 years ago are still here, still viable and teachable and learnable for people today.”

His work on the project was made possible by Handshouse Studio, a nonprofit based in Norwell that focuses on building large historical objects as educational projects. In the past, the studio has recreated a Revolutionary War-era wooden submarine as well as a 17th century Polish synagogue.

Burrey has been collaborating with Handshouse for a quarter century, and they, too, were looking for ways to help Notre Dame. Thus, the Handshouse Studio Notre Dame Project was born.

The first thing they did, both as an educational exercise and out of a show of solidarity with the French, was build a full-scale model of one of the wooden trusses that supported the roof of Notre Dame. These were the hidden structures inside the massive cathedral where the devastating fire started.

Burrey brought a team of students from his restoration carpentry class at North Bennet Street to Washington, D.C., in 2021. For two weeks they worked with skilled traditional craftsmen from the Timber Framers Guild to build the massive wooden structure, known as Choir Truss #6, working all the way from white oak logs hewed with broad axes to the finished product.

“It was a way for us to say that building something as it was originally made is not only possible but also important,” said Marie Brown, executive director of Handshouse Studios. The original hope, she said, was that they might donate the truss to the French for inclusion in the cathedral. But something else happened, something even cooler.

The build was so successful that the two architects overseeing the reconstruction of Notre Dame, Rémi Fromont and Philippe Villeneuve, traveled to the United States to see the structure. As a result, they invited two American timber framers to join the reconstruction team in France. One invitation went to Michael Burrey. The other went to Jackson Dubois, a Washington state man who is president of the Timber Framers Guild.

For three months in the summer of 2023, Burrey and Dubois joined 18 carpenters from a French company called Asselin working on the wooden components of the Notre Dame spire. They operated out of the medieval town of Thouars in western France, about three hours from Paris, and Burrey worked on the decorative elements of the spire — the quatrefoils, trefoils, railings, and dormers. There were language barriers, Burrey said, but the one thing they had in common was that they all spoke carpentry.

“[Burrey] called me a couple times from France and was telling me about what he was working on, where he was sitting, what he was seeing in this medieval town,” said Claire Fruitman, the provost and interim president of North Bennet Street School.

Burrey (third from left) joined French carpenters for a picture. The French carpenters built the quatrefoils for the nave of Notre Dame cathedral. MICHAEL BURREY

“No one ever wants any sort of heritage to have something go wrong,” she added. “But when it does it’s amazing to say we have people who can fix it and bring it back to life, and the lessons he learned over there are things he’s brought back into the classroom for the next generation of preservationists.”

Burrey, who lives in Plymouth, was not the only local craftsperson to work on the project. Hank Silver, who owns Ironwood Timberworks in Hatfield, worked as lead carpenter for the nave, the central, large space of the cathedral that accommodates the congregation during religious services. Silver declined an interview request, but told Elle Décor that “for someone like me, being able to work on this building, which is the birthplace of this technique, is particularly meaningful. When I look at Notre Dame, I will be able to say, ‘I built that.’”

Burrey, meanwhile, has not been to the cathedral since it reopened, but he said he has marveled at the photos of the completed work.

“There’s nothing but a smile on my face, and a feeling of deep appreciation for being part of a group effort, when I think of everybody coming together to get things back the way they should be,” he said.

Categories Creativity, Goodness, International, Joy
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