Tag Archives: cyber-bullying

Wondering how FLOTUS deals with POTUS’s bullying

If only I could slip into first lady Melania Trump’s skull, even for just a moment, I think I could learn a thing or two about what she really thinks of life with the president of the United States.

The first lady announced her initiative some time ago to crack down on cyberbullying, which has a terrible effect on our nation’s younger generation. It’s a noble cause. It is worthy of the kind of thing that first ladies take on as issues they want to promote during their time in the White House.

However, Melania Trump has been pretty quiet about that initiative. Why do you suppose that’s the case? Oh, wait! It’s probably because her husband keeps up the Twitter tirades, the cyber rants, the outright “bullying” of his political opponents.

Which brings me to the point I made on this blog, along with others around the world, when Melania Trump first announced her initiative: You need to take care of business at home, Mrs. Trump!

Were I to eavesdrop on the Trumps, I am likely to hear the first lady castigate her husband for making her look like a fool. That, of course, presumes she is able to talk frankly and candidly with her husband, the self-proclaimed “stable genius” and the smartest man in human history.

Well, the more I think about it, the more I am inclined to think that she doesn’t have that capability within the residence of the White House. It’s likely a pretty good bet that Donald Trump rules the roost at home much as he tries to rule the West Wing.

The president’s incessant, relentless bullying of foes sets a terrible example for his wife to follow as she seeks to end the bullying scourge among our nation’s children.

Does any of that matter to the Bully in Chief? I’ll give you three guesses … and the first two don’t count.

Get ready for a social media brawl like no other

I don’t make political predictions any longer.

Instead, I tend to qualify my observations by suggesting that “I won’t be surprised if . . . “ something happens.

So, here goes. I will not be surprised in the least if the next presidential campaign features a social media brawl the likes of which we’ve never seen.

I get that social media are a relatively new phenomenon in today’s political world. However, it stands to reason to conclude that the president of the United States, Donald John Trump, will unleash a social media torrent against all the foes who will be running against him. The irony of such a thing happening is ironic in the extreme.

Here’s why: First lady Melania Trump has declared her mission is to eliminate cyberbullying. I like the cause. It’s noble. It’s worth fighting.

She needs to start with her husband. Donald Trump is the “Cyber Bully in Chief.” He’s proud of his Twitter prowess, despite his mangled syntax and his overuse of capital letters. He uses Twitter as a weapon. Yes, he has “weaponized” social media to the extent that he can use Twitter to hurl insults and innuendo, to threaten and coerce his foes.

I know the first lady’s major beneficiaries are intended to be children who are victimized by bullies. Still, her husband’s (mis)use of Twitter needs attention, too.

I expect the president to use Twitter to disparage his opponents at every level possible. He will use it with cruelty. Trump will be savage. He won’t back down. Trump never will apologize. Why should he? His base will cheer him on!

That’s all he cares to know. Will it please the base?

Get ready for the bloodiest political fight we’ve ever seen.

Call for unity and harmony runs smack into this

Take a gander at these tweets, sent out in tandem.

They came from the fingertips of the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. The president wants us to unite. He wants us to set aside our differences, or speak with civility to each other about them.

Why, then, does he insist on calling the media the “true enemy of the people”? Why does he keep insisting that the media’s mission is to spread “fake news” and to engage in “open hostility ” toward his administration?

This is the kind of message that runs directly counter to any phony calls for unity and harmony and for civil discussion.

The president and first lady will go Tuesday to Pittsburgh to speak to the survivors and family members of the victims of the massacre at Tree of Life synagogue. He’ll say the right things in the moment. Then he well could return to the type of messaging we keep seeing, reading and hearing.

If the president really intended to lower the temperature, he would stop sending messages like this into cyberspace. He would cease this endless, relentless Twitter tantrum/tirade against the media and his opponents.

I believe you could this “cyber bullying.” Isn’t that correct, Mme. First Lady?

Mme. First Lady, this is in your wheelhouse

First lady Melania Trump has put the word out: She wants to take on cyber bullying as her signature effort as the wife of the president of the United States.

So, here we are: A foul-mouthed comedian gets Donald Trump’s base all fired up with her intemperate remarks; the president fires back on Twitter attacking her and the venue in which she delivered her remarks; he also attacks the former FBI director on Twitter and says he should be in jail.

The bullying is rampant. It’s out of control!

Isn’t this squarely in the wheelhouse of what the first lady said she wants to eradicate? Sure, she spoke initially about the bullying of children. That truly is a noble cause. I truly do wish the first lady well on that part of her campaign.

But her husband continues to wage cyber war against his foes, threatening them, bullying them, insulting them.

Mrs. Trump still needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with her husband about what he’s doing, how he’s undermining her effort to deal squarely with what she describes as a national crisis.

Oh, wait a minute. A “heart-to-heart” discussion presumes both parties possess a heart from which to speak.

Try to push another cause, Mrs. Trump

I’ve already spoken admirably of first lady Melania Trump’s call to end cyber bullying, even though I recognize — along with millions of others — that she needs to reel in her husband.

I hate suggesting this, but I now fear that the first lady’s effort — noble as it is — has become a lost cause.

She cannot speak on the issue anywhere in this country without being ridiculed by those who insist that Donald Trump’s use of Twitter is a form of cyber bullying. And it certainly qualifies as such!

Mrs. Trump made a mistake when she declared that to be her No. 1 priority for as long as she serves as first lady. She cannot control her husband. Hell, no one can control him!

The president continues to rail via Twitter against foes in this country. He chides his opponents and critics, often with intemperate language that doesn’t measure up to the high standards he should be setting as our head of state and government.

Trump made what sounded like a serious pledge when he said he wouldn’t tweet once he became president. It turned out to be yet another sham, another flim-flam … another outright lie!

And I fear that his lying has undercut his wife’s noble quest to protect our young people against cyber bullying that too often crosses the line of decency. Too many of them have harmed themselves grievously after they have been insulted and bullied via social media.

My request of the first lady: Give up that particular fight and turn to something else.

Melania must bear the burden of Donald

I am feeling mildly — but not totally — sorry for first lady Melania Trump.

She tweeted a message this weekend asking Americans to put forward a “random act of kindness.” Her intention was to call attention to Random Act of Kindness Day.

You would have thought she had just asked us all to eat our puppies for dinner. The Twitterverse exploded with recriminations against the first lady, but more notably as well against her husband, the president of the United States, Donald John Trump.

The tweets lambasted the president for his own bullying instincts and how he uses social media to insult, berate and condemn others.

It reminds me of when Mrs. Trump announced as her major goal as first lady would be to end cyber bullying. The response, as expected, was the same as this random act of kindness message. Many Americans — yours truly included — are appalled that Donald Trump uses Twitter to bully his opponents. We called on the first lady to look first toward her husband’s conduct.

Now she is facing this latest tempest.

I don’t feel totally sorry for Melania Trump. She was an adult when she married a twice-married man. She had to know what she was getting when she and Donald tied the knot. She surely knew about his behavior, his previous transgressions, his admitted philandering.

By virtue of her husband’s stunning victory in the 2016 presidential election, Melania Trump has assumed a role for which she might not have expected to assume.

Thus, I feel mildly sympathetic toward her as she seeks to convey a positive message.

If only her husband would follow his wife’s sound advice.

End of cyber bullying? Yes, it starts at ‘home’

Mr. President: Your bullying hasn’t worked before and it won’t work now. No one is above the law.

— U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, responding via Twitter to social media attacks from the president of the United States

There you have it. The president is using Twitter to “bully” a member of the U.S. Senate.

Donald Trump tweeted some intensely personal criticism of Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, over the senator’s remarks this past weekend regarding the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s efforts to influence our 2016 election.

Trump responded by calling Blumenthal a Vietnam War con man, referring to when Blumenthal was caught in 2010 fabricating stories about how he served “in Vietnam” during the war. He didn’t and apologized for the misleading statements he made saying that he had served “in country.”

Cyber bullying anyone? There it is.

Which brings me back to another point I’ve made already. First lady Melania Trump wants to make cyber bullying her signature effort as long as she and her husband occupy their respective titles. It’s a noble cause and I’ve applauded the first lady for bringing attention to the issue of cyber bullying, particularly among children.

However, Melania, you do need to start the campaign right at home, in the “dump” where you live part time with your husband, the White House.

Seriously, Mme. First Lady. Take your husband aside, reprimand him sternly and get him to stop using social media as a weapon with which he insults and bullies his political opponents.

Memo to Melania: Rein in your husband

Dear Melania …

I hope you don’t object to my addressing you by your first name. I mean no disrespect. To my point …

I greeted your call for an end to cyber bullying with a bit of skepticism. My first reaction, along with that of millions of other Americans, was that you need to start at home in that noble effort.

You need to curtail your husband’s use of Twitter, I suggested, as a weapon to bludgeon foes and assorted critics.

Later I posted a blog entry extolling the virtue of your effort. You are right to use your high profile as first lady of the United States to end this scourge of Internet bullying. I applauded you then and I applaud you now.

However, your husband is at it again. I’m sure you’ve heard about that ghastly tweet he posted this morning about Mika Brzezinski, about how she was “bleeding from a facelift.” He called her “Crazy Mika.” Then he aimed his Twitter barrel at Joe Scarborough, her MSNBC morning talk show co-host, calling him “Psycho Joe.”

Just as a reminder, here is what he wrote: “I heard poorly rated Morning Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came …” Trump tweeted before adding “to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

The recriminations are going to come quickly over a period of time, Melania. Your husband’s fellow Republicans are incensed. Some of them are as incensed as the rest of us who didn’t vote for your husband.

I am reminded of the question leveled at the reviled late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who in the 1950s said there were communists employed at the State Department. “Have you left no sense of decency?” came the question from U.S. Army counsel Joseph Welch to Sen. McCarthy during one of those infamous Senate hearings.

It’s time to ask the same thing of your husband. I never thought I’d wonder this about the president of the United States: Has he no sense of decency, or decorum? Does he disrespect the high office he holds so much that he stoops to the level of juvenile petulance to communicate in such a crude, hostile and undignified manner?

I guess, Melania, we’re back to where we began. Isn’t it time you reined in that husband of yours before you launch your campaign against cyber bullying?

Melania is MIA on her key issue as first lady

Melania Trump made a big speech during her husband’s campaign for the presidency.

She said she wanted to craft a theme as first lady that dealt with cyber bullying. Too many children are being bullied over the Internet and that if Donald Trump were elected president, she would take up the important cause of ending the scourge. She would use her position as first lady as a bully pulpit.

That’s what she said.

Since then? Well, she’s gone missing in action.

Yes, yes. I know about all the snickering and tittering about Mrs. Trump’s first lady theme.

“You need to start at home, Mrs. Trump. Tell that husband of yours to quit using Twitter to insult others,” came some of the response. I took note of the irony, too, in this blog at the time of her declaration.

Setting all that aside, the issue is an important one and the first lady of the United States — whoever she is — maintains a high-level platform to deal squarely and forthrightly with the key issues of our time.

Cyber bullying is one of them.

I’m still waiting to hear about the formation of a task force. Or about high-powered meetings with Internet executives at the White House. To my knowledge, the first lady hasn’t scheduled highly visible meetings with educators about what they are doing in their schools to deal with this crisis.

The first lady has dropped off the grid. She has kept a low profile while her husband continues to make outrageous statements about his political foes, his immediate predecessor, the media and anyone else who says critical things about him.

I am one American who would welcome at least a temporary diversion from all this chaos and madness. The first lady pledged to use her office for a seriously important public cause.

Many of us are still waiting, Mrs. Trump.

Chelsea stands tall in defense of Barron

Barron Trump has joined a club that is almost as exclusive as the one his parents have joined.

He becomes one of the kids who will grow up in the White House. Thus, he has become — to the shame of many — an easy target of ridicule.

Barron doesn’t deserve such treatment any more than one of his predecessors did. And she has come to Barron’s defense. Barron? Meet Chelsea Clinton … if you haven’t met her already.

Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky sent out a tweet over the weekend urging the public to let Barron, who’s 10 years of age, to “be a kid.” If only the Internet trolls out there would back off.

His parents, Donald and Melania Trump, have assumed the highest profile possible as president and first lady of the United States. With that responsibility, though, a lot of attention gets riveted on their son.

It’s good to see Chelsea Clinton come to the youngster’s defense. She knows better than most White House kids about the hurtful things that foes of her parents can sling — not just at them, but at her as well.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chelsea-clinton%e2%80%99s-years-in-the-spotlight-%e2%80%94-from-first-daughter-to-mother-of-two/ar-AAm93OJ?li=BBnbfcL

Indeed, I was privy once to a hideous comment from a local clergyman in Amarillo about Chelsea. I called him on it later in a note I wrote to him. He apologized to me several weeks later.

This social media craze has erupted over the past decade. Barron’s mother has made cyber bullying her main cause as first lady. Barron’s father has used Twitter to insult his opponents and assorted critics during the past year and a half. Clearly there needs to be some serious introspection within the Trump household as it relates to the use of certain social media — and as the first lady starts to ramp up her efforts to end this cyber scourge.

As for the youngster — and I won’t repeat some of the crap I’ve heard said about him — he doesn’t deserve any of the kind of abuse that’s being flung in his direction.

He is a boy, for crying out loud! As for Chelsea, she’s grown into a successful woman — who happens to be a friend of Barron’s half-sister Ivanka, who grew from a child of privilege into a woman who’s carved out her own successful life.

I now will doff my proverbial hat to Chelsea Clinton for speaking out nicely on behalf of a youngster who’s now faced with growing up under the brightest glare imaginable.