Tag Archives: Melania Trump

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What will be your agenda, Mr. Clinton?

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Melania Trump has disclosed her signature first lady issue if she gets to move into the White House with her husband, Donald J. Trump.

It’s cyber-bullying. It’s a nice issue to concentrate on, although the irony of her focus on this issue has been lost on no one, given the GOP nominee’s abuse of social media.

That all said, what about Bill Clinton’s agenda as the nation’s first-ever “first gentleman”?

First, we’ll have to clear up how the media will report on the former president’s coming and going. Do they call him “former president Clinton” or do they refer to him as “first gentleman”? I’ve heard that when he and his wife are together, they will be introduced as President and Mr. Clinton.

What, though, will be the issue that occupies his time, enables him to speak out publicly on behalf of his wife’s administration?

First ladies all have identified themselves with signature issues: Michelle Obama — healthy eating and physical fitness; Laura Bush — education; Hillary Clinton — children’s welfare; Barbara Bush — family literacy; Nancy Reagan — drug abuse … and on and on it goes.

Hillary Clinton has indicated her husband will play a key role as an economic adviser. That’s a good call, given the economic vitality the nation enjoyed during the 42nd president’s two terms in office. That’s no “theme,” though, for the first spouse.

I will await — assuming Hillary wins the election Tuesday — word from the former president/first gentleman on how he intends to use the enormous public profile his new status will provide.

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Irony clouds Melania’s message

cyberbullying

I hope y’all are sitting down.

I’m about to say something positive about Melania Trump, wife of the Republican presidential nominee who — in my view — is totally unfit and unqualified to occupy the office he is seeking.

She spoke this week about cyber bullying and said she intends to make that her signature issue if she becomes first lady.

The issue is a noble one. The goal is equally noble. She has articulated a serious problem in contemporary society. Children shouldn’t be bullied in any context, she said, particularly by faceless and nameless abusers who hide their identity in the vast reaches of cyberspace.

The problem, though, is the messenger. Melania Trump is married to a serial cyber bully. Donald Trump has used his Twitter account to bully and insult women, Gold Star parents, Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants … you name ’em, he’s bullied ’em.

The irony of Melania’s first lady theme is too obvious to ignore.

Still, the issue — standing alone and separate from the context in which she delivered it — is a worthy one.

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Cyber bullying must stop … no kidding!

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Melania Trump said what?

She wants to make cyber bullying the top priority of her potential first ladyship?

Oh, the irony. The lack of spousal awareness. This is amazing!

Trump’s major solo speech today highlighted what she wants to do in case her husband Donald gets elected president next week.

Cyber bullying is her target. It’s got to end, she said.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/melania-trump-says-she%e2%80%99ll-fight-cyber-bullying-as-first-lady/ar-AAjREmA?li=BBnbcA1

OK, she can start at home. With her husband.

Donald Trump has used his Twitter account to call broadcast journalist Megyn Kelly a “bimbo.” He has used it also to allege the existence of “sex tapes” involving former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, about whom he has said many other unflattering things … also on social media.

She said this, among other things: “Our culture has gotten too mean and too rough, especially to children and teenagers,” Trump said Thursday afternoon in Pennsylvania.

Melania Trump, quite naturally, made no mention of her husband’s cyber-bullying history.

Trust me on this: The irony cannot possibly be lost on many of us who understand just how much her husband has contributed to the coarsening of political discourse.

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Trump’s campaign machinery is broken

melania and michelle

Donald J. Trump keeps telling us about his business acumen, his ability to craft “great deals,” his no-nonsense approach to just about everything he has ever done in his entire life.

If he is a man of his word, then he’s got to fire someone — or several someones — over the embarrassment they have brought to his campaign and to his wife, Melania.

The Republican presidential nominee’s wife gave what had been hailed initially as a fine campaign speech on behalf of her husband.

Then came news of an entirely different kind. Melania Trump lifted passages of her speech from a 2008 speech delivered by none other than Michelle Obama, the wife of the man every Republican in the Cleveland convention seems to hate.

Now comes the quarrel over whether she plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said she didn’t, that “93 percent” of Trump’s speech was her own. Others have quibbled over Barack Obama’s lifting of remarks from then-Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s speech.

Look, Mrs. Trump got embarrassed. So did her husband, whose campaign has shrugged off the criticism. That’s the campaign’s call to make.

But it does reveal a fundamental flaw in the Trump campaign apparatus, which is that no one looked over nominee’s wife’s shoulder to protect her and her husband from the kind of gaffe that occurred.

Melania Trump in many ways is an accomplished individual. She speaks several languages. She is not, however, a polished political spouse.

I have zero clues as to how this situation developed. I have a better idea, though, about how it could have been prevented. That responsibility belonged to the individuals in charge of Donald Trump’s campaign.

They let him and his wife down.

Donald Trump will boast all he wants about how he plans to win this election. It starts, though, with building a campaign organization run by people who know what they’re doing.

national news, political news

Melania channels Michelle? Oops!

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When journalists copy material and pass it off as their original reporting, well, they get into a lot of trouble.

Same for, say, doctoral students who write theses to earn their university degrees. No can do.

Politicians, too, can get themselves into trouble when the swipe others’ profound thoughts and present them as their own brilliant rhetoric. Isn’t that right, Vice President Joe Biden?

Now, do politicians’ spouses face the same scrutiny? Must they endure the ridicule that comes to journalists and pols?

Melania Trump delivered a speech last night at the Republican National Convention that some dialed-in watchers thought they’d heard before. Turns out a good bit of Trump’s comments originated from another well-known political spouse, one Michelle Obama.

Melania channeling Michelle? Who’d have thunk that?

This link contains some fascinating evidence of plagiarism. Check out the bold-faced type references in both women’s speeches.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/288274-melania-trump-speech-plagiarized-paragraph-from-michelle-obamas-2008

Trump’s speech — I listened to most of it Monday night — contained a passage about growing up in Slovenia and mentioned the values imbued in her by her parents. Someone out here in TV Land remembered Obama making strikingly similar references when she spoke at the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver.

There were other passages that seemed quite similar in character.

Vice President Biden ran for president a couple of times before getting the call to run with Sen. Barack Obama in 2008. The first time was in 1988. Then-Sen. Biden’s campaign flew into the ditch when it was revealed that he copied extended passages from an earlier speech delivered by Neil Kinnock, who was a British Labor Party leader.

News networks played the two men’s speeches side by side. The ridicule was loud and sustained. It’s interesting to me as well that much of what Biden lifted from Kinnock’s speech also had to do with personal history, upbringing and values.

Biden pulled out of the Democratic Party primary race and skulked back into the Senate cloakroom shadows … at least briefly.

Melania Trump has said she wrote the speech she delivered last night with “as little help” as possible.

Hmmm. Really?

Suffice to say she seems to have needed some help with this one — and now she’ll need help explaining what appears to be so painfully obvious.

media news, national news, political news

Yep, this campaign is going to get real nasty

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melania-trump

DailyKos is a lefty website dedicated to promoting liberal causes and candidates.

There you go. I’ve stipulated that I understand where this outfit’s bias lies.

It posted a picture of Melania Trump, wife of the presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump. Mrs. Trump is wearing a thong, she’s toting a pistol and is standing on the wing of her hubby’s airplane.

The picture is, shall we say, not very dignified.

Take a gander here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5/21/1529429/-Trump-s-wife-posing-with-gun-Thong-and-Boots-And-they-had-a-problem-with-Michelle-s-bare-arms?detail=facebook

Is this what’s happening in this presidential campaign? We’re now going to be seeing more pictures of Melania Trump — a former model and beauty queen — posing in such a provocative manner?

Here’s the fascinating element of this picture: Trumpkins are giving Melania a pass. Imagine if, say, Michelle Obama were photographed in this manner. What might their response be to that?

True, liberals are using these kinds of images to suggest that Mrs. Trump’s history would stain her activities as first lady if she and her husband move into the White House.

I should point out that the picture was taken some years ago, I guess when Melania Trump was still earning an income striking these kinds of poses.

Her husband is making Hillary Clinton’s husband, the former president of the United States, an issue in his campaign. It might follow, then, that turnabout is fair play and that Melania’s past is fair game as well.

Sure, the former president got impeached because he lied about an affair he had with a White House intern. Does that worsen his wife’s credentials as a potential president.

My wish is for the candidates and their supporters to keep the spouses out of the argument.

If that wish isn’t to be granted, then I fear we’re going to see more pictures of Melania Trump striking poses not usually identified with first ladies.

 

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Social media have become a campaign curse

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I think I’ve discovered an undeniable truth.

Social media are to blame for the ghastly decline of intelligent political discourse in this great country of ours.

It’s not a big-time flash. Others likely have drawn similar conclusions and written about it.

I am now going to refer to the Twitter War that’s going on between Donald J. Trump and Rafael Edward Cruz. Donald vs. Ted. It’s getting childish in the extreme and it’s lending nothing whatsoever to any kind of intelligent discussion among Republicans over which of these men should be their party’s nominee for president of the United States.

The crux of the Twitter fight centers on their wives. Melania Trump and Heidi Cruz are now being kicked around like the proverbial footballs that they are not.

It’s sickening me.

A pro-Trump super-PAC put something out there about Mrs. Trump appearing in the nude. Trump tweeted some threats to Cruz about it, threatening to say something mean about Mrs. Cruz.

Ted Cruz denied having anything to do with the ad. Trump ain’t buying it. Now it’s Cruz calling Trump a “coward.”

Back and forth they go.

And voters are supposed to make intelligent decisions — based on this petulant patter — on which of them should carry the GOP banner forward against the Democratic nominee this fall?

Give me a break!

Maybe the mainstream media — and I don’t mean as the conservative epithet the term has come to mean — is responsible. By “mainstream,” I refer to the major broadcast and cable news networks and the print media who keep reporting this stuff.

Heck, bloggers all along the political spectrum have weighed in on it — as this blog is doing at this moment.

So … I’ll accept my share of the blame for this social media craze and its alleged “contribution” to the quality of our national political debate.

I’m not proud of myself.

My only recourse is to ignore this social media sniping.

Therefore, I will.

 

media news, national news, political news

Now the spouses have become targets

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When did Melania Trump and  Heidi Cruz become candidates for president of the United States?

Oh, wait! They merely are married to men who are running for the office. Now, though, they’ve become subjects of social media messages fired by one of the Republican presidential candidates.

Let’s hold on for a wild ride, shall we?

A super PAC not associated with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign apparently posted an ad that contained a picture of Melania in the nude. Donald J. Trump responded that “Lyin’ Ted” needs to be careful or else Trump would reveal something about Cruz’s wife.

These attacks are getting tiresome, not to mention way, way off topic.

Trump took down the tweet he put out there about Mrs. Cruz. However, as we know, social media’s impact is immediate, as in instantaneous. It’s like trying to unhonk a horn; it cannot be done.

As for the British GQ article and the picture about Mrs. Trump, well, that’s apparently been out there a good while, having been published in 2000.

I’m just one individual living out here in Flyover Country.

I’d like to offer a suggestion to these two men — neither of whom ever would get my vote for president.

How about avoid talking about your wives? You guys — not the women you married — are running for the presidency. It is your views on the issues that interest me and, I presume, millions of other Americans who are paying attention to this campaign.

The rest of this baloney is tawdry and unbecoming of the office you are seeking.

Then again, so are some of the things the actual candidates for president have said about each other.