Allow me to introduce the new White House Director of Human Resources … Melania Trump! Yes, folks, Melania is now in charge, it would appear of decisions regarding employees of this administration.
Mira Ricardel is a deputy national security advisor who has served in a number of positions during her career. Earlier in the Trump administration, she served as a Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director in the Office of Presidential Personnel, and then Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration. Earlier in her career, she served as a foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator Bob Dole and held higher-level positions in the U.S. Department of Defense during the Presidency of George W. Bush. On April 23, 2018, new U.S. National Security Advisor John R. Bolton named her as his incoming deputy. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Melania wants her fired. But why???
Who knows? It is said that when Melania wasted spent taxpayer money to travel to the African continent last month, the two women quarreled – some say over the seating arrangement on the plane, while others have differing explanations. According to the Wall Street Journal, Melania, without evidence, believes that Ms. Ricardel was behind some of the negative stories about her. Oh yes … silly me … I forgot that Melania is “the most bullied person in the world” or some such nonsense.
She also reportedly clashes with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis over “staffing decisions and policy differences”. WHOA … wait just a minute there … Melania isn’t the policy-maker here! We The People did not elect Melania! Well, in truth, we didn’t elect her husband, either, but at least his name was on the ballot … I did not see Melania’s anywhere, did you? But to the point … why would she even be putting her two-cents worth in on policy issues??? She’s a former nude model and as far as I know does not hold a degree in political science or foreign policy! But then … neither does her husband. Oh, my head!!!
So … yesterday, Melania’s ‘office’ (why does she need an ‘office’ when she doesn’t do a damn thing?) released the following statement …
“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she [Ricardel] no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House.”
I dislike John Bolton … immensely, in fact. But, if there are issues with Ms. Ricardel, they are Bolton’s to work out, to decide on a course of action, not Donald Trump’s and most assuredly not Melania’s. Has anybody in this administration ever heard the term “chain of command”? And firing a member of the National Security Council because the prez’ wife didn’t like the seating arrangements on an airplane??? What the heck kind of Banana Republic has this nation turned into???
It was hard enough trying to keep up with one blathering, ignorant, narcissistic fool in the White House, but now we have at least two to worry about? Where is ‘due process’? Where is ‘chain of command’? Where is … where is democracy? Where is the idea that we elect people with the expectation that they will act in the best interest of the nation and its people? Instead, we have a whiny bitch married to an incompetent president and between them they are calling all the shots. What could possibly go wrong?
A portion of the population in the U.S. and Canada scoff at the notion of climate change. Rather than believe all of the highly-educated scientists worldwide who have studied the data and done the research, they follow Donald Trump’s lead 🙄 and claim it is a hoax, it is a scam, or that “sure, the weather is changing, but that’s a natural phenomenon – remember the ice age?” No, actually I don’t … it was a bit before my time. But take heart! I have found something that is going to make those skeptics sit up and take notice! Check out this headline from The Guardian …
When she went to visit the New Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, Texas, on 21 June, wearing a jacket (it was hot that day, no need for a jacket at all) that read, “I really don’t care, do U?” she came under fire by the press, and many of us were seeing red, myself included. Her staff insisted there was no message intended, but nobody fell for that. The jacket was ugly, and Melania typically dresses like a high-class call girl, so it was quite outside her ‘norm’.
In July, Trump again returned to the attack, offering a $1 million personal donation to Warren’s favorite charity if she took a DNA test and it confirmed her Cherokee ancestry.
Juan was 18 years old in 1968 and was working as a busboy when Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles, California. Juan has carried the guilt of Kennedy’s death with him his entire life, for he had reached out to shake Kennedy’s hand and as Kennedy stopped to shake hands with the young busboy, the shots rang out.
There was a time I pitied Melania, felt sorry for her having to be married to a narcissist like Donald Trump, even though she deserves whatever anguish he puts her through, since she married him for money and citizenship. But all bets are off, and I now think that Melania is every bit as selfish, narcissistic and uncaring as her husband. Too bad she didn’t just stay in bed and watch t.v. all day, for her ’visit’ was further proof that humanitarian values do not exist in the White House today. No word on the actual visit. Nice job, Melania. I want Michelle Obama back!!!!!!!
Filosofa sends heartfelt condolences to the family, friends and co-workers of long-term Washington Post writer Charles Krauthammer who died yesterday from a year-long battle with cancer. He was a conservative, but one of the good guys and he will be missed.
Credibility. It’s all about credibility. Too many, following Trump’s claims of “fake news” question the mainstream, legitimate press already. They must maintain high standards, be their own fact-checkers, and most importantly, focus on what is important. And quite frankly, Melania Trump’s shoes are not what is important. Nobody cares if Melania wants to wear 6” stilettos to traipse through the flood water in Texas. Well … nobody should care. Those who do, wouldn’t understand real news if it punched them in the nose, so they don’t count.
Mind you, I am not disputing the above statement, for it is the truth. I am merely saying that it is not news, it is not sound journalism, it is not the most relevant issue of the day, and it does nothing for the credibility of the source, in this case the New York Times, though The Washington Post and others also jumped on the bandwagon. Predictably, Fox News and others didn’t miss the opportunity to criticize …
The mainstream media has always been under a magnifying glass, criticized when they get it wrong but rarely praised for getting it right. Under the present administration, the scrutiny is even more intense, with daily attacks on the press by not only Trump, but many of his advisors and minions, not to mention the right-wing media outlets and conservative pundits. It is more imperative than ever that the press leave Melania’s fashion choices to the fashion pages and instead keep the ‘news’ section for real news such as North Korea’s missile tests, Trump’s abhorrent staff picks, his attempts to destroy federal regulations, and his undermining of foreign relations, to name a few. Focus on the connections between Russia and Trump last year, focus on the connection between Hurricane Harvey and carbon emissions. Just don’t throw away your credibility, for our very freedom depends on you, our press, to shine the light in the dark corners. Shoes are not news.
Meanwhile, on the outside looking in are the gun crazies and the Westboro church crowd … a crowd of five members. The Westboro people held their usual, offensive signs, saying “We have a duty to warn. If we don’t warn and they go to hell, their blood is on us.” Yawn. But what brought a bit of humour to their protest was that there were some others there with signs mocking the WBC group, signs that read “God Hates Morning People” and “Bangs Are The Devil’s Children”. Just a little good, clean fun, folks. Some 40 police officers guarded the five WBC protestors … frankly, I think it was a waste of manpower, but then what do I know?
I speak, of course, of Melania Trump’s speech at the RNC convention on Monday evening. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that is true, then apparently Ms. Melania Trump holds First Lady Michelle Obama in very high regard, as one portion of her speech is taken directly from Ms. Obama’s speech in 2008, with just a few words changed. In all fairness, it was only 131 words out of 1,366, or slightly less than 10% of the speech, not “most of the speech” as some social media sites claim. Still, it is shameful. Why?