Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Betty MacDonald, Darsie Beck and childhood memories of Vashon Island




Darsie obediently got up, took the sugar bowl and went out to the kitchen. After a long long time he came back to the breakfast table with a plate of cinnamon rolls.
"What are these for?" his father said. "And where is the sugar?"
"Sugar?" said Darsie. "What about sugar?"
"I told you to fill the sugar bowl," said Mrs. Burbank.
"Oh," said Darsie, "I thought you said, 'Get the cinnamon roll.'"
from Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Magic by Betty MacDonald


  Darsie Beck
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Hello 'Pussy' this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle:  

Of the 7,701 people on Vashon Island who cast ballots for president in November, fewer than 13% voted for you, and nearly 78% backed Hillary Clinton.

Do you have any idea why they feel so ashamed? I do!  
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Should I remain in bed, leave my country or fight against the dragon?

( see also the story by Wolfgang Hampel
' Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say ' )
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The Egg and I Film Illustration























 

The Betty MacDonald Networks Foto.

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Betty MacDonald in the living room at Vashon on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle author Betty MacDonald on Vashon Island
<p>Time Out of Mind (1947) - avec Betty et Don MacDonald et Phyllis Calvert</p>

Betty and Don MacDonald in Hollywood

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Betty MacDonald's mother Sydney with grandchild Alison Beck

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Betty MacDonald fan club fans,


you can join Betty MacDonald fan club on Facebook.

Thank you so much in advance for your support and interest.  

We are so grateful and happy because of having such outstanding Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.
Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Darsie Beck is Alison Bard Burnett' s son, Betty MacDonald's and Mary Bard Jensen's nephew.

It's not a surprise at all that Darsie Beck's Auntie Betty MacDonald was crazy about him. 


You only have to read Darsie Beck's childhood memories on Vashon Island, published on Betty MacDonald fan club blog.

What a gifted personality! 

An outstanding writer and artist! 

Thank you so much, dear Darsie Beck! 

Betty MacDonald got a very good taste.
Artist and author Darsie Beck gave us the permission to share a special gift with you, his childhood memories of Vashon Island.

It's beautifully written and a real treasure.


Vashon Island can only be reached by ferry.

Vashon Island can only be reached by ferry. (William Yardley / Los Angeles Times)
 

Childhood memories of Vashon Island 1943-53

Copyright by Darsie Beck
All rights reserved

I've always been fascinated by the ferry boats that serve the island and Olympic Peninsula communities of Puget Sound. I feel particularly fortunate to have spent my first ten years and the last thirty years here on Vashon Island and the in between years living in water front homes near the Fauntleroy ferry dock and on the north end of Mercer Island near the old ferry landing that once served that island community.

I have many fond memories of the ferry boats but one in particular remains as clear to me today as when it occurred many years ago.

At the time I was born, my parents lived with my grandparents in a small house on Judkins street just east of 23rd, a few blocks south of the Lake Washington floating bridge tunnels. This area, at the time, was the northern most end of what was called, "Garlic Gulch", the original Italian community in Seattle. With a new baby in the house things got pretty crowded and before long my parents moved to Vashon Island where they purchased their first home on the bluff above Dolphin Point on the north end of the island. My mother's sister Betty MacDonald, her husband Don and her two daughters Anne and Joan had moved to the island a couple years before prompting my parents to follow their lead to this island community.

In the 1940's as now, we reached the island by ferry boat. I can't tell you what that first ferry ride was like in the fall of 1943 or which boat we rode on but I do know, the boats were privately operated by Puget Sound Navigation (PSN), doing business as the Black Ball Line.
Black Ball provided service between Vashon Island, Harper (on the Olympic Peninsula) and Fauntleroy (West Seattle). During the 1940's the wooden ferries Vashon and Kehloken and the steel electric Quinault saw regular service on this run. The Quinault carried 100 cars compared to the 45 car capacity of the smaller wooden ferries and was considered a super ferry at the time. Most of the ferries flying the Black Ball burgee were former San Francisco Bay boats purchased by PSN after the completion of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.

In early 1948, a proposed rate increase by PSN resulted in Vashon Island suspending its service contract with Black Ball. Undeterred by Vashon's action, Black Ball continued service between Harper and Fauntleroy and to Vashon on an "as needed only" basis. With the help of sympathetic state and local government agencies Vashon began developing its own ferry service utilizing former Lake Washington and Tacoma boats out of service since the opening of the Lake Washington floating bridge and the Tacoma Narrows bridge. The Lincoln, Washington, City of Tacoma and Crosline became the backbone of the new fleet.

My first ferry boat recollection is from the summer of 1948. I was five years old, my mother was pregnant with my sister, and we were sitting in the family car on the Vashon ferry dock on a very foggy July morning waiting for the boat to Fauntleroy to take my mother to the hospital.
The fog had created a stillness over the dock broken every few minutes by the sounding of fog horns and the occasional car driving on and off the wood planked ferry dock. Soon I heard the sound of an approaching ferry, its engines reversing, its prop wash splashing noisily between the pilings, the shrill screech of the ferries wood side rails rubbing against creosote dolphins and apron wing walls as the boat nudged itself into the slip. Chains clattered as deck hands removed car barriers in preparation of off loading. I don't remember which of the old ferries landed at the Vashon dock that foggy morning but I do remember, once our car was loaded onto the boat, sitting on the car deck, looking out the port into the fog when suddenly out of the mist a large ferry appeared. Its propellers furiously reversing, deck hands and passengers on both boats bracing for an impending collision. My eyes grew big and my body grew tense as the huge ferry cleared the fog revealing her black hull, white superstructure and the black ball painted near the top of her red stack. It was the Quinault, Puget Sound's first super ferry heading directly for our boat. The prop wash of the huge ferry was buffeting the side of our boat, causing it to rock back and forth in its slip. The Quinault was now within a car's length of our boat when its forward motion finally came to rest and her reversing action began to move the boat out of harms way. As stealthy as she had appeared, she now disappeared back into the fog sending a collective and audible sigh of relief through passengers and crew of both boats.

The Quinault, now considered a medium sized boat compared to today's super ferries, still ply's the waters of Puget Sound and still holds a place in my childhood memories as the most enormous boat ever seen by a five year old.



Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are going to include all these new details and info in updated Betty MacDonald biography.

More info in next Betty MacDonald fan club newsletters.

If you'd like to join Betty MacDonald fan club as a follower you only have to press the join button on Betty MacDonald fan club blog.

 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel is going to introduce life and work of Betty MacDonald at Vita Magica January 2017.

Wolfgang Hampel talks about the new fascinating Betty MacDonald biography which will be published in 2017 by Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club. 




Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are working on an updated Betty MacDonald biography.

This very new Betty MacDonald biography includes all the results we got during a very successful Betty MacDonald fan club research which started in 1983.

You'll be able to find unique Betty MacDonald treasures in our Betty MacDonald biography.

Betty MacDonald biography includes for example interviews with Betty MacDonald, her family and friends.

We got many letters by Betty MacDonald and other family members even very important original ones.


Our goal is to publish a Betty MacDonald biography that shows all the details of Betty MacDonald's life and work but also to present her fascinating siblings.

Dear Betty MacDonald fan club fans let us know please what you are interested most in a future Betty MacDonald biography.  

Do you prefer an e-book or a so called real book?
 
Vita Magica by Wolfgang Hampel is really fascinating and very interesting.


Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel is going to introduce life and work of Betty MacDonald at Vita Magica January 2017.

He is going to talk about the new fascinating Betty MacDonald biography. 


Wolfgang Hampel and Friends of Vita Magica visited Minister of Science of Baden-Württemberg, Theresia Bauer in Stuttgart.

They visited Landtag and had a great time there.
 

We are looking for your favourite city for International Betty MacDonald fan club event 2017.

Send us your votes please.

Deadline: January 31, 2017


Do you have any books by Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen with funny or interesting dedications? 


If so would you be so kind to share them?


Our next Betty MacDonald fan club project is a collection of these unique dedications.


If you share your dedication from your Betty MacDonald - and Mary Bard Jensen collection you might be the winner of our new Betty MacDonald fan club items.


Thank you so much in advance for your support.



 


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Thank you so much for sending us your favourite Betty MacDonald quote.


You'll be able to read more info during January.

We are so glad that our beloved Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is back.

New  Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many new interviews.

Alison Bard Burnett and other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's fascinating project Vita Magica.
Very exciting Betty MacDonald fan club news! 
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel is going to present life and work of Betty MacDonald in Vita Magica January 2017.
You'll be able to read more info during January!
Vita Magica December was very successful.

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel invited a very famous author.

The visitors enjoyed Vita Magica very much.  

A great event! 







Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel interviewed Betty MacDonald's daughter Joan MacDonald Keil and her husband Jerry Keil.

This interview will be published for the first time ever.


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New Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many interviews never published before.


We adore Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli 


Thank you so much for sharing this witty memories with us.


Wolfgang Hampel's literary event Vita Magica is very fascinating because he is going to include Betty MacDonald, other members of the Bard family and Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.

It's simply great to read Wolfgang Hampel's  new very well researched  stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett,  Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others.

 


Linde Lund and many fans from all over the world  adore this funny sketch by Wolfgang Hampel very much although our German isn't the best.

I won't ever forget the way Wolfgang Hampel is shouting ' Brexit '.

Don't miss it, please.

It's simply great!

You can hear that Wolfgang Hampel got an outstandig voice.

He presented one of Linde Lund's favourite songs ' Try to remember ' like a professional singer.

Thanks a million!

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli  and our 'Italian Betty MacDonald' - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member author and artist Letizia Mancino belong to the most popular Betty MacDonald fan club teams in our history.

Their many devoted fans are waiting for a new Mr. Tigerli adventure.

Letizia Mancino's  magical Betty MacDonald Gallery  is a special gift for Betty MacDonald fan club fans from all over the world.


Don't miss Brad Craft's 'More friends', please. 

Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island is one of my favourites.


I agree with Betty in this very witty Betty MacDonald story  Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say by Wolfgang Hampel.

I can't imagine to live in a country with him as so-called elected President although there are very good reasons to remain there to fight against these brainless politics.

Shortly after Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president last summer, a cougar swam across a salt-water channel to this island oasis amid Seattle and its suburbs.
At the time, many people here viewed the candidate and the big cat as interlopers, soon to be exposed and expelled. But both are still around — and one is clearly causing more concern than the other on this increasingly anxious island.
“If we could have the cougar or Trump for the next four years, I’d take the cougar,” said Tristan Dornall, 27, who has not ventured alone into the woods near his house since he had a startlingly close encounter with the animal there in November. “I mean, definitely.”
If Seattle is the predictably Democratic capital of the Pacific Northwest, Vashon, just 20 minutes away by ferry, is one of the region’s experimental laboratories, a place where new strains of environmentalism and progressivism flourish, unencumbered by mainland reality. It presents an increasingly rare constituency: rural but not red.


Don't miss these very interesting articles below, please.



Did dinosaurs fart their way to extinction?



We don't know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows? - Dana Rohrabacher


Lately, it appears Trump has gone back into the field to drag in a whole new bunch of State contenders. 

My favorite is Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, a person you have probably never heard of even though he’s been in Congress since the 1980s and is currently head of the prestigious Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.
Rohrabacher is also a surfer and former folk singer who once claimed global warming might be connected to “dinosaur flatulence.” 

Did dinosaurs fart their way to extinction?



I think the future dinosaur flatulence will be the behaviour of 'Pussy' and his very strange government.

Poor World!    Poor America! 

Don't miss these very interesting articles below, please.


The most difficult case in Mrs.Piggle-Wiggle's career


mrs. piggle wiggle's magic_korean_2011_hardcover_FRONT



Hello 'Pussy', this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. 

You took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consultung the State Department. We have to change your silly behaviour with a new Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle cure. I know you are the most difficult case in my career - but we have to try everything.......................



Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel sent his brilliant thoughts. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang! 

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Hi Libi, nice to meet you. Can you feel it?

I'll be the most powerful leader in the world.


Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say

Copyright 2016 by Wolfgang Hampel

All rights reserved 


Betty MacDonald was sitting on her egg-shaped cloud and listened to a rather strange guy.

He said to his friends: So sorry to keep you waiting. Very complicated business! Very complicated!

Betty said: Obviously much too complicated for you old toupee!

Besides him ( by the way the  First Lady's place ) his 10 year old son was bored to death and listened to this 'exciting' victory speech. 

The old man could be his great-grandfather.

The boy was very tired and thought: I don't know what this old guy is talking about. Come on and finish it, please. I'd like to go to bed.

Dear 'great-grandfather' continued  and praised the Democratic candidate.

He congratulated her and her family for a very strong campaign although he wanted to put her in jail.

He always called her the most corrupt person ever and repeated it over and over again in the fashion of a Tibetan prayer wheel.

She is so corrupt. She is so corrupt.  Do you know how corrupt she is? 

Betty MacDonald couldn't believe it when he said: She has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.

Afterwards old toupee praised his parents, wife, children, siblings and friends. 

He asked the same question like a parrot all the time:

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
I know you are here!

Betty MacDonald answered: No Pussy they are not! They left the country.

They immigrated to Canada because they are very much afraid of the future in the U.S.A. with you as their leader like the majority of all so-called more or less normal citizens. 

By the way keep your finger far away from the pussies and the Red Button, please.


I'm going to fly with my egg-shaped cloud to Canada within a minute too.

Away - away - there is nothing more to say! 


Real vs. Ersatz









I can understand the reason why Betty MacDonald, Barbara Streisand, other artists and several of my friends want to leave the United States of America.


I totally agree with these comments:

This is incredible! I'll You get what you pay/vote for and Trump is the epitome of this ideology. America I won't feel bad for you because you don't need my sympathy for what's coming but I am genuinely scared for you. 'Forgive them lord for they know not who they do' or maybe they do but just don't care about their future generations who will suffer for this long after the culprits have passed away. 

Is the USA like North Korea where you can't trust other politicians?

That's it. 

Put Ivanka in! Put Ivanka in! Put my whole family and friends in! '

What about Putin? 

Or the leaders from China and North Korea?

Wouldn't it be a great idea to put them in too?

What about very intelligent and qualified Sarah Palin? 


André Maurice Dayans Foto.



I found this in Wikipedia about her:

In 2006, Palin obtained a passport[88] and in 2007 traveled for the first time outside of North America on a trip to Kuwait. There she visited the Khabari Alawazem Crossing at the Kuwait–Iraq border and met with members of the Alaska National Guard at several bases.[89] On her return journey she visited injured soldiers in Germany.[90]

That's the reason why very intelligent and brilliant Sarah Palin knows the World very well. 

Sarah and ' Pussygate '  will rule America and the World - what a couple. 


I am neither Christian enough nor charitable enough to like anybody just because he is alive and breathing. I want people to interest or amuse me. I want them fascinating and witty or so dul as to be different. I want them either intellectually stimulating or wonderfully corny; perfectly charming or hundred percent stinker. I like my chosen companions to be distinguishable from the undulating masses and I don't care how. - Betty MacDonald




Daniel Mount wrote a great article about Betty MacDonald and her garden.

We hope you'll enjoy it very much.

I adore Mount Rainier and Betty MacDonald's outstanding descriptions

Can you remember in which book you can find it?

If so let us know, please and you might be the next Betty MacDonald fan club contest winner. 

I hope we'll be able to read Wolfgang Hampel's  new very well researched  stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett,  Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others - very soon.

It' s such a pleasure to read them. 

Let's go to magical Betty MacDonald's  Vashon Island.



Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  and Betty MacDonald fan club research team share their recent Betty MacDonald fan club research results.

Congratulations! They found the most interesting and important info for Wolfgang Hampel's oustanding  Betty MacDonald biography.

I enjoy Bradley Craft's story very much.  


Don't miss our Betty MacDonald fan club contests, please. 

 
You can win a never published before Alison Bard Burnett interview by Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel. 

Good luck!  

This CD is a golden treasure because Betty MacDonald's very witty sister Alison Bard Burnett shares unique stories about Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Nancy and Plum. 





Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I'm one of their many devoted fans. 


Many Betty MacDonald  - and Wolfgang Hampel fans are very interested in a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories.


We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State.

Tell us the names of this mysterious couple please and you can win a very new Betty MacDonald documentary. 


 


Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerl is beloved all over the World.

We are so happy that our 'Casanova'  is back.



Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are going to share very interesting info on ' Betty MacDonald and the movie The Egg and I '. 

Another rare episode (from March 21 1952) of the short-lived comedy soap opera, "The Egg and I," based on best selling book by Betty MacDonald which also became a popular film.

The series premiered on September 3, 1951, the same day as "Search for Tomorrow," and ended on August 1, 1952. 

Although it did well in the ratings, it had difficulty attracting a steady sponsor. This episode features Betty Lynn (later known for her work on "The Andy Griffith Show") as Betty MacDonald, John Craven as Bob MacDonald, Doris Rich as Ma Kettle, and Frank Twedell as Pa Kettle.


Betty MacDonald fan club exhibition will be fascinating with the international book editions and letters by Betty MacDonald.

 
I can't wait to see the new Betty MacDonald documentary.

Enjoy a great breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.

Have a nice Wednesday,

Heidi 

Don't miss this very special book, please.


Bildergebnis für Betty MacDonald Christmas



Vita Magica 

Betty MacDonald 

Betty MacDonald fan club 

Betty MacDonald fan club on Facebook

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( Polski)   

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - LinkFang ( German ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Academic ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel -   

Wolfgang Hampel - DBpedia  ( English / German )

Wolfgang Hampel - people check ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )

Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French ) 


Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD

Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I  

Betty MacDonald fan club groups 


Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  


Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Greta Larson

Betty MacDonald fan club fan Heiderose Teynor 

Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles 



A new president, a new predator and a liberal island is worried about its way of life


Shortly after Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for president last summer, a cougar swam across a salt-water channel to this island oasis amid Seattle and its suburbs.
At the time, many people here viewed the candidate and the big cat as interlopers, soon to be exposed and expelled. But both are still around — and one is clearly causing more concern than the other on this increasingly anxious island.
“If we could have the cougar or Trump for the next four years, I’d take the cougar,” said Tristan Dornall, 27, who has not ventured alone into the woods near his house since he had a startlingly close encounter with the animal there in November. “I mean, definitely.”
If Seattle is the predictably Democratic capital of the Pacific Northwest, Vashon, just 20 minutes away by ferry, is one of the region’s experimental laboratories, a place where new strains of environmentalism and progressivism flourish, unencumbered by mainland reality. It presents an increasingly rare constituency: rural but not red.


Country roads curve through art galleries, alpaca farms and sustainable distilleries. A nonprofit’s popular “rewilding” program teaches families “our renowned approach to deep nature connection and the bundle of teachings we call Coyote Mentoring.”Of the 7,701 people here who cast ballots for president in November, fewer than 13% voted for Trump, and nearly 78% backed Hillary Clinton.
Now, as the Trump era unfolds, Vashon is confronting what many parts of liberal America feel, an uncomfortable blend of realization, determination and fear. And this being an island — a bubble, yes, islanders know that — there is also a temptation to retrench, to shrink the world to the immediate shoreline.“I tend to be very globally minded, and I think my processing right now is to think more locally,” said April Sherman, whose great-great-grandfather homesteaded here in the 1870s. “I feel a little out of control, like I can’t do much.”Some Vashon residents say they want to reach out, to bridge the cultural and economic divisions Trump’s campaign helped reveal. Many also express resolve to fight harder than ever to protect the planet and their unique piece of it.
“Since the advent of environmental laws, I think there is more gravely at risk now than ever before,” said Amy Carey, whose fight to stop a gravel mine from being dug here more than a decade ago led her to found Sound Action, an assertive nonprofit that works to protect nearshore areas all over Puget Sound. “And we have no gimme room for error.”
A couple of years ago, stories shot across the Internet declaring Vashon the most liberal place in the United States based on an analysis of political donations. Not long after, that analysis was debunked by an island newspaper, which concluded that, using the same measure, Vashon was merely more liberal than Seattle. Other skeptics have questioned what liberalism really looks like in a wealthy enclave where more than 90% of its 10,600 residents are white.
Islanders, ever self-aware, are trying to answer the question themselves. They have been working to finalize a new zoning plan that aspires to a challenging progressive balance — increase the amount of affordable housing without compromising their rural way of life or giving too much freedom to developers they do not trust.
One idea is to create a nonprofit that would build only as much housing as island workers need and in a way that puts the environment first.
“I know we are grieving with the results of the national election,” Martin Baker, a longtime resident and environmental activist, wrote to concerned residents last fall. “I suggest this is a place to take action. It is, after all, our home.”
That word, “home,” resonates deeply here. Cashiers in the grocery store pick up conversations with customers from the last time they came in. Baristas anticipate orders. Not only do people leave their cars unlocked, some leave the keys on the seat.
The novelist Michael Chabon once lived on Vashon and has said it helped inspire the setting of his 2002 book, “Summerland.” In the book, the fictional Clam Island was connected to the mainland until a bridge collapsed. It did not take long for islanders to view their new isolation as a good thing. Vashon never had a bridge, but its residents, like those in the book, are content to come and go by ferries, which run frequently from two terminals on the island.
“You could not get a cup of coffee or clam chowder, or hear all about your neighbor’s sick cousin or chicken, on the Clam Narrows Bridge,” Chabon wrote, adding, “Islands have always been strange and magical places. Crossing the water to reach them ought to be, even in a small way, an adventure.”
As for Trump, some here are trying to take a long view — hoping that his election is an aberration, a difficult but not insurmountable hurdle in the march toward a more progressive era.Many residents note that the West Coast voted overwhelmingly Democratic (some big cities and counties voted more decisively for Clinton than Vashon did). They emphasize that Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes nationwide (suggesting they may not be in such a bubble after all), and they point out that Trump is viewed with suspicion even among many in his own party (another reason, they hope, he might not win a second term).“You have to empathize with and understand those people,” Derek Churchill, who teaches sustainable forestry practices on Vashon but also in conservative timber towns, said of Trump voters in rural areas. “A lot of these folks are so desperate.
“They live in places where schools are closing, where there are meth addiction problems, these communities that are slowly spiraling downward. That is something we need to figure out how to address. That’s got to be a wake-up call.”
Bianca Perla, who grew up on the island, earned a doctorate in ecology at the University of Washington and now runs the Vashon Nature Center, said that, although she fears a Trump administration, it may not be a bad thing that his election pierced what she called Vashon’s “bubble mentality.”
“Now we see more widely,” Perla said. “Our island, the nice thing about it is we can be sort of insular and have this beauty all around us. But the cold reality is that it’s affected by larger systems. It’s all connected.”
That dynamic, in fact, is what prompted the cougar to make his big swim last summer.
Sergeant Kim Chandler of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said the cougar likely was seeking a bubble of its own — a place with lush forests and abundant prey, a refuge from the increasingly developed region beyond Vashon. Now, however, after the cougar has been linked to at least four alpaca deaths, the state is trying to trap it. If the state succeeds, the animal may be outfitted with a GPS collar and released in the Cascade Range.
“If you picked that island up and plopped it down somewhere near the mountains,” Chandler said, “it’d be exactly the same habitat.”

Feckless on Foreign Policy

By Michael Shank | Contributor

Jan. 23, 2017, at 3:30 p.m. 
 
The Senate Democrats' sound and fury over President Donald Trump's cabinet picks and his political agenda is apparently signifying nothing – at least on defense policy. The fact that the Senate quickly confirmed General James "Mad Dog" Mattis by a vote of 98-1 late Friday afternoon in the wake of inauguration activities shows that even progressive Democrats, such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, don't have the stomach for a foreign policy fight with Trump's new Pentagon. That's how effectively Trump and perhaps even Mattis' defense industry connections are already bullying Washington into submission.
Sanders justified his vote by saying that while Mattis wasn't the nominee he preferred, "in a Trump cabinet likely to be loaded up with right-wing extremists, all of whom I will oppose, I hope General Mattis will have a moderating influence on some of the racist and xenophobic views that President Trump advocated throughout the campaign." This is incredibly wishful and relativistic thinking. Mattis will never be a moderating influence, and he's already exhibited racist and xenophobic thinking by the ways in which he views the adversary.
The Pentagon's new secretary of defense believes, and is on record saying, that we should "have a plan to kill everybody you meet," that "if you f*ck with me, I'll kill you all," and that "there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot".
Bombastic braggadocios aren't helpful at the Pentagon helm. This language may serve a purpose within the defense industry, as it props up their for-profit modus operandi. But in terms of aiding international affairs, it's caustic and antagonistic and will only get us into more wars, not fewer.
Mattis, moreover, thinks that shooting people is "just business" and that it's "a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." This is exactly the kind of attitude that leads to U.S. Marines urinating on dead Afghan bodies. When our new defense secretary says that killing is "a hell of a hoot," and that "It's fun to shoot some people," we are inculcating a culture of indiscriminate violence. This is not level-headed and will undoubtedly lead to more trickle-down killing and callousness.
This is also not emblematic of cooler heads capable of prevailing amid the myriad precipitous, conflict-ridden cliffs that we will invariably face in a Trump foreign policy agenda. Yet, every single Democrat in the Senate – with the exception of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand – voted to send that message to the world. What a lost opportunity to send a different message.
What's most frustrating here, however, is that this problem – of progressives rolling over to more militaristic foreign policy players in Washington – is prevalent within the progressive policy community. It's also what plagued Sanders' presidential campaign. Many progressive policymakers don't have sufficient foreign policy experience to competently push back when questioned about a violent conflict overseas. They've largely not spent time in conflict zones without military escort, which is part of the problem, of course, as Pentagon protection offers an extremely selective and ultimately biased perspective. Nor have they prioritized meetings with community-based organizations in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria or Pakistan, that are cleaning up after the death and destruction from our drone strikes, airstrikes, ground raids and weapons trafficking.

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This is a serious and serial problem. Progressive Democrats often get elected to Congress after years of local and state service on legislatures, county and school boards, and commissions, but arrive in Washington with little foreign service or foreign policy expertise of any kind. They haven't seen for themselves – and our mainstream media are rarely showing – the disastrous wake left behind by our military invasions. And they often can't properly pronounce a foreign or adversary's town, tribe, territory or tactic in a debate, getting trounced by more militarily minded opponents.
This happens over and over and over again. And it was very visible in debates between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. She was clearly perceived as the security expert, even if it came with email blunders, because she had exposure while at the State Department to the language, the lexicon and the litany of defense apparatuses that are useful to presidential debate.
It's high time progressives in Congress – elected officials and their senior staff – get over to places like Bayda province in Yemen, where the Trump administration's first drone strikes occurred over the weekend, Somalia's Galmudug region, where the U.S. killed nearly two dozen government soldiers in September, and anywhere in Afghanistan, where the U.S. under the Obama administration increased air strikes by 40 percent in 2016. And insist to see it with the assistance and collaboration of local actors and international aid and relief organizations.
Then, progressive members of Congress might be able to go toe-to-toe with the Mattises of this world. Until then, progressives have no fighting chance on the foreign policy front.

Michael Shank Contributor
Michael Shank teaches sustainable development at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and served as a senior policy adviser to U.S. Rep. Michael Honda between 2009-2013.



Trump's 'day of patriotic devotion' has echoes of North Korea

Donald Trump has echoed North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, after declaring that the day of his inauguration should be a “national day of patriotic devotion” – a rallying cry that would not be out of place in the secretive state’s propaganda.
Trump’s proclamation, which was made official on Monday, has been uttered by Kim in speeches to his 1.2 million-strong military and members of the ruling Korean Workers’ party in recent years.


In an address to a military parade in Pyongyang on 10 October 2015 – the party’s 70th anniversary – Kim thanked the “heroic men and women” of the army and security services who, “in hearty response to the party’s appeal, have worked with patriotic devotion and created one heroic miracle after another” in their quest to build a “thriving socialist nation”. The phrase also crops up in North Korean propaganda. On 19 December last year, the fifth anniversary of the death of Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, the Rodong Sinmun, the ruling party’s official newspaper, said of the late leader: “The noble image and patriotic devotion of the peerless patriot, who reliably defended socialism centred on the popular masses and turned [North Korea] into an invincible politico-ideological power and a world military power.” In an article just after Kim’s death, the official KCNA news agency cited meteorologists as saying “the spring of prosperity under socialism will surely come … thanks to the patriotic devotion of Kim Jong-il, who blocked the howling wind of history till the last moments of his life”.
And last January, the Rodong Sinmun cited a speech in which Kim Jong-un had congratulated a socialist youth league formed in the name of his grandfather and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, on its 70th anniversary.
Kim, according to the paper, said the league had enjoyed “a history of brilliant victories of the great leaders’ original idea of prioritising the youth and their wise leadership and a history of ardent loyalty and patriotic devotion, with which the young people of Korea have supported the party and the leader, the country and the people”.
Trump’s use of the term, and its provenance, was noted on Twitter.

In his inaugural speech, Trump declared that he would put “America first” and argued that patriotic zeal could heal the nation’s divisions. On Monday, paperwork was filed with the federal government declaring that the day of his inauguration, 20 January 2017, would be officially known as the “National Day of Patriotic Devotion”. Trump’s executive order said the proclamation would “strengthen our bonds to each other and to our country – and to renew the duties of government to the people”. Jiro Ishimaru of Asia Press, an Osaka-based organisation with a network of high-level contacts in North Korea, said that by invoking patriotic devotion, Trump appeared to be channeling three generations of North Korea’s Kim dynasty.
Trump’s inaugural speech in full
“Ordinary North Koreans hear those words every day,” Ishimaru told the Guardian. “They don’t just appear in the media and speeches, but on posters and in other propaganda. They hear the word patriotism at local residents’ meetings, where, for example, they’re told to produce more rice out of love for their country, or to collect more scrap metal for weapons and bullets.” It is not unusual for incoming US presidents to draw on their political and philosophical beliefs when, as is customary, they give a new name to inauguration day. Barack Obama called his first inauguration, in 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation; eight years earlier, George W Bush began his first term by declaring the date a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving. Ishimaru said most ordinary North Koreans were barely aware that the US had a new president. The Rodong Sinmun reported the inauguration in a brief article, without comment, at the bottom of the newspaper’s back page on Sunday, two days after it took place.
“I talk to North Koreans every day, and Trump’s inauguration has barely registered with them,” he said. “Life is extremely tough, so they are too busy concentrating on their own problems to think about US politics.”

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President Trump tweets on Women’s March protesters: “Why didn’t these people vote?”

President Donald Trump, in between tweets about his “long standing ovations” at CIA headquarters and his inauguration’s television ratings, implied in a tweet early Sunday morning that the Women’s March protesters did not vote.
“Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election!” Mr. Trump wrote. “Why didn’t these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly.”

However, shortly after posting that first tweet, he added that he respects Americans’ right to protest:
In an appearance on “Face the Nation,” top aide Kellyanne Conway defended Mr. Trump’s comments on the protests. She denounced the “vulgar” comments from some at the Women’s March on Washington, saying there was no need for such “negative” comments.
“You had profanity-laced, vulgar comments coming from celebrities,” she said. “Donald Trump in his inaugural address talked about the forgotten man, now these forgotten celebrities came to Washington to deliver really negative messages.”
The gender gap in the election was large: Mr. Trump beat Clinton by 53 percent to 41 percent among men, while Clinton won among women by 54 percent to 42 percent. The gender breakdown among white voters was different, however: Mr. Trump beat Clinton among white women 53 percent to 43 percent.
The Women’s March featured millions of protesters in cities across the country rallying against President Trump’s stated agenda, with the primary protest being a large rally in Washington, D.C. Many protesters wore pointy-eared “pussyhats,” carried signs protesting various aspects of the new administration’s plans, and chanted, “Welcome to your first day, we will never go away.” 
It’s not clear which of the many celebrities to speak at the Women’s March President Trump was referring to in his tweet, but Madonna’s fiery, profanity-laced speech has since drawn the most attention online. 
“I’m angry,” Madonna stated at one point, pointing to her chest. “Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”  
In addition to tweeting about the Women’s March protesters, Mr. Trump also weighed in on his visit to CIA headquarters on Saturday afternoon
While standing in front of the CIA’s memorial to fallen officers, the president tried to reassure the intelligence community he was still behind them after a series of disparaging remarks. He also talked about his anger with the media for its coverage of the crowd size at his inauguration.
Recently-departed CIA Director John Brennan issued a blistering statement about Mr. Trump’s appearance shortly afterwards, slamming what he described as the president’s self-aggrandizement in front of the memorial to our nation’s fallen intelligence officers. 
The president, however, had a different take in a tweet on Sunday, focusing instead on the “long standing ovations” he received in Langley, Virginia, and calling the overall event a “WIN!”

U.S.

Defiant Voices Flood U.S. Cities as Women Rally for Rights


Video

Three Generations of Women, Marching on Washington


For Amber Coleman-Mortley, the Women’s March on Washington was a family affair.

By BRENT McDONALD and BEN C. SOLOMON on Publish Date January 21, 2017. Photo by Ben C. Solomon/The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — The day after what many had assumed would be the inauguration of the first female president, hundreds of thousands of women flooded the streets of Washington, and many more marched in cities across the country, in defiant, jubilant rallies against the man who defeated her.
Protesters jammed the streets near the Capitol for the main demonstration, packed so tightly at times that they could barely move. In Chicago, the size of a rally so quickly outgrew early estimates that the official march that was scheduled to follow was canceled for safety, though many paraded through downtown, anyway.
In Manhattan, Fifth Avenue became a tide of signs and symbolic pink hats, while in downtown Los Angeles, shouts of “love trumps hate” echoed along a one-mile route leading to City Hall, with many demonstrators spilling over into adjacent streets in a huge, festival-like atmosphere.
The marches were the kickoff for what their leaders hope will be a sustained campaign of protest in a polarized nation, riven by an election that raised unsettling questions about American values, out-of-touch elites and barriers to women’s ambitions.


Hundreds of thousands of women came out to march in Washington, D.C. There were also hundreds of solidarity marches held around the nation and the world.
By NEETI UPADHYE on Publish Date January 21, 2017. 

  Watch in Times Video »

On successive days, two parallel and separate Americas were on display in virtually the same location. First there was President Trump’s inauguration, his message of an ailing society he would restore to greatness aimed at the triumphant supporters who thronged Washington on Friday.
Continue reading the main story




Then on Saturday, in what amounted to a counterinauguration, the speakers, performers and marchers proclaimed allegiance to a profoundly different vision of the nation. They voiced determination to protect an array of rights that they believe Mr. Trump threatens, and that they thought only recently were secure.

“Thank you for understanding that sometimes we must put our bodies where our beliefs are,” Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon and an honorary chairwoman of the march, told those gathered in Washington. “Pressing ‘send’ is not enough.”
To mobilize a progressive movement reeling from Hillary Clinton’s defeat, organizers broadened the platform beyond longstanding women’s issues such as abortion, equal pay and sexual assault to include immigrant rights, police brutality, mass incarceration, voter suppression and environmental protection.

 
Protesters at the women’s march in Paris on Saturday. Credit Jacky Naegelen/Reuters
But the march’s origins were in the outrage and despair of many women after an election that placed gender in the spotlight as never before.
Mrs. Clinton assertively claimed the mantle of history, offering herself as the champion of women and families, and calling out her opponent for boasting of forcing himself on women in a recording that prompted a national conversation about sexual assault. In a sly allusion to the crude remarks Mr. Trump made on the tape, many marchers, women and men alike, wore pink “pussy hats” sporting cat ears.
In Washington, demonstrators old and young pushed strollers and hoisted children onto their shoulders or guided elderly parents through the milling crowds. They waved handmade signs: “Hate Does Not Make America Great,” “I Will Not Go Back Quietly to the 1950s” and “I’m 17 — Fear Me!” They chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.’”
Emma Wendt, 13, came with a large group of family members and schoolmates from Kensington, Md., for a simple reason: “being part of history.”

Photographs

Pictures From Women’s Marches on 

Every Continent

Crowds in hundreds of cities around the world gathered Saturday in conjunction with the Women’s March on Washington.

OPEN Photographs
The marchers were confronting a president who has appointed just a handful of women to his cabinet and inner circle, and who has pledged to nominate a Supreme Court justice who opposes abortion rights and to dismantle a health care act that covers contraception. His appointees have track records of voting to cut funding for anti-domestic violence programs, opposing increases in the minimum wage and restructuring Medicaid — moves that disproportionately affect women and minorities.
Crowd estimates were not available in some locations, but a city official in Washington said that participation there likely surpassed half a million, according to The Associated Press. Added to the more than 400,000 that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office said had marched in New York City, hundreds of thousands more in Chicago and Los Angeles, and those who showed up at many other marches nationwide, the total attendance easily surpassed one million in the United States. Marches also took place in a number of cities abroad, including Berlin, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and Cape Town.

In Boston, where the crowd swelled to 175,000, Senator Elizabeth Warren looked out at the admiring throngs and conjured up the image of Mr. Trump’s being sworn in the day before.
“The sight is now burned into my eyes forever,” Ms. Warren said, adding, “We will use that vision to fight harder.”

Graphic

Where Women’s Marches Are 

Happening Around the World

The Women’s March on Washington is expected to be the largest inauguration-related demonstration in United States history.
OPEN Graphic
Yet women did not protest — or vote — as a bloc. About 53 percent of white women voted for Mr. Trump, according to exit polls, and many said his demeaning comments about women mattered less to them than their belief that he had the independence and business experience to bring about change, restore well-paying jobs and protect America’s borders.
“The women’s march clearly doesn’t represent all women,” Alex Smith, the national chairwoman of the College Republicans, said in an email. She noted the exclusion of anti-abortion women’s groups from the event. “It is precisely this type of dogmatic intransigence that voters rejected.”
The marches came a day after confrontations between anti-Trump protesters and the police led to more than 200 arrests in Washington. But Saturday’s demonstrations were peaceful, and counterprotests were few. In St. Paul, one man was arrested after marchers reported he had “sprayed irritants” into the crowd, the police said.
By midafternoon, the target of the protests had not said anything about the marchers, verbally or on Twitter. Though the Washington march ended within sight of the White House, and some demonstrators passed by his recently opened hotel, Mr. Trump did not cross paths with the crowd.

 
A woman wore a United States flag as a hijab during a protest in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Credit Gregor Fischer/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The march had strong echoes of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign events, with some of the celebrities, performers and slogans. Madonna, who gave a speech, said toward the end of it: “I have thought a lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this will not change anything.” (The Secret Service declined to comment on the remark, though an investigation seemed unlikely.)
After attending the inauguration on Friday, Mrs. Clinton herself was not seen at the march. She did, however, acknowledge the moment on Twitter.

“Thanks for standing, speaking & marching for our values @womensmarch,” she wrote.

The marches captured the potential and the perils for the progressive movement — whether it can frame its message to appeal to new generations and whether it can translate protests into action locally and nationally.
Plans for Saturday’s march in Washington began as Facebook posts just after the election by a retired lawyer in Hawaii and a fashion designer in New York, both of whom are white and had no experience organizing protests. Soon, protests flooded the feeds urging them to diversify. In the end, a triumvirate of African-American, Latina and Muslim women joined the leadership team.

 
In a sly allusion to crude remarks made by Mr. Trump about sexual assault, many marchers wore hats sporting cat ears. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
The march’s initial struggles echoed broader debates in the movement about whether the courting of new demographic groups alienated the white working-class voters who had carried Mr. Trump to victory, or whether white women had betrayed gender solidarity by voting for him. Yet on Saturday, these tensions did not deter a multiracial, multigenerational turnout. Mothers marched with daughters and granddaughters; whole families, including husbands and sons, marched arm in arm.
Mikhael Tara Garver, 37, of Brooklyn, who marched with her mother, recalled how her family had reacted after the election: “We were all calling my great-aunts because we all knew how important Hillary was to them and how important surviving to see that moment was for them.”
Another family came from Baltimore. “We have to get away from fear,” said Lureen Grace Wiggins, 49. Her daughter, Eden, 17, was exhilarated by the size of the crowd: “When you’re out here and people see you, they know you care.”
The march was rich in historical allusions — most deliberately, the 1963 march led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But it echoed many other marches, including those in the 1970s that brought hundreds of thousands of women to the streets championing an Equal Rights Amendment that was ultimately defeated, and those from the late 1990s and on for abortion rights, culminating in a 2004 March for Women’s Lives that organizers said drew more than one million to the capital.
Saturday’s march happened to come just six days before quite a different one: the annual March for Life by opponents of abortion.
But perhaps the most apt analogy, said Ellen Fitzpatrick, the author of “The Highest Glass Ceiling,” was to the 1913 suffragists’ march on Washington, timed to coincide with the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson. Led by the renowned suffragist Alice Paul, it featured a lawyer, Inez Milholland, riding a white horse down Pennsylvania Avenue, with 24 floats, nine marching bands and luminaries like Helen Keller. The women were hooted and jeered at and roughed up by the police, prompting congressional hearings and generating public sympathy. They won the vote seven years later.
Faye Wattleton, the former president of Planned Parenthood, said that women have always had to regroup, even after they thought battles were won. “This is not new,” she said. “We have to go back to the battlefield and re-fight the wars against women.”
Correction: January 21, 2017 An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of the author of “The Highest Glass Ceiling.” It is Fitzpatrick, not Fitzgerald.


On 'SNL' even Putin makes fun of Trump's Inauguration crowds

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The day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th President of the United StatesSaturday Night Live opened not with Alec Baldwin's lip-pursing impression of Trump, but with a shirtless Beck Bennett as Russian President Vladimir Putin, addressing the American people.

"Relax. I got this. Putin's going to make everything OK."
After joking that he wouldn't let anything bad happen to the United states ("it's the most expensive thing we've ever bought"), Bennett as Putin addressed Donald Trump, bringing up the size of the Inauguration crowds, which has already been a hot topic with Trump and his press secretary Sean Spicer.
"I'm glad to see so many people turned up to your inauguration," he said, showing a photo of huge crowds in Washington, D.C.

"Oh wait, that's the Women's March!" he cried as the audience cheered. "This is the inauguration," he added, and the photo changed to the sparser crowds from Friday. See the clip below.
Also in the cold open, Kate McKinnon showed up as a "happy" Russian woman, terrifyingly reading a prepared statement about how great life is for women in Russia. Later in the sketch she reappeared behind Putin, wearing the same pink hat many donned during the Women's March.



 


January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.

Yes, the day a multi-billionaire elite rules the American nation is the day 'the people' finally rule. Ho-hum.


Why Does Donald Trump Lie So Much?


Washington braces for anti-Trump protests, New Yorkers march

By Ian Simpson and Joseph Ax | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK

 
Washington turned into a virtual fortress on Thursday ahead of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, while thousands of people took to the streets of New York and Washington to express their displeasure with his coming administration. Some 900,000 people, both Trump backers and opponents, are expected to flood Washington for Friday's inauguration ceremony, according to organizers' estimates. Events include the swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and a parade to the White House along streets thronged with spectators.

The number of planned protests and rallies this year is far above what has been typical at recent presidential inaugurations, with some 30 permits granted in Washington for anti-Trump rallies and sympathy protests planned in cities from Boston to Los Angeles, and outside the U.S. in cities including London and Sydney.
The night before the inauguration, thousands of people turned out in New York for a rally at the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and then marched a few blocks from the Trump Tower where the businessman lives.
The rally featured a lineup of politicians, activists and celebrities including Mayor Bill de Blasio and actor Alec Baldwin, who trotted out the Trump parody he performs on "Saturday Night Live."
"Donald Trump may control Washington, but we control our destiny as Americans," de Blasio said. "We don't fear the future. We think the future is bright, if the people's voices are heard."
In Washington, a group made up of hundreds of protesters clashed with police clad in riot gear who used pepper spray against some of the crowd on Thursday night, according to footage on social media.
The confrontation occurred outside the National Press Club building, where inside a so-called "DeploraBall" event was being held in support of Trump, the footage showed.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said police aimed to keep groups separate, using tactics similar to those employed during last year's political conventions.
"The concern is some of these groups are pro-Trump, some of them are con-Trump, and they may not play well together in the same space," Johnson said on MSNBC.
Trump opponents have been angered by his comments during the campaign about women, illegal immigrants and Muslims and his pledges to scrap the Obamacare health reform and build a wall on the Mexican border.
The Republican's supporters admire his experience in business, including as a real estate developer and reality television star, and view him as an outsider who will take a fresh approach to politics.
Bikers for Trump, a group that designated itself as security backup during last summer's Republican National Convention in Cleveland, is ready to step in if protesters block access to the inauguration, said Dennis Egbert, one of the group's organizers.
"We're going to be backing up law enforcement. We're on the same page," Egbert, 63, a retired electrician from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

SECURITY CORDON

About 28,000 security personnel, miles of fencing, roadblocks, street barricades and dump trucks laden with sand are part of the security cordon around 3 square miles (8 square km) of central Washington.

A protest group known as Disrupt J20 has vowed to stage demonstrations at each of 12 security checkpoints and block access to the festivities on the grassy National Mall.

Police and security officials have pledged repeatedly to guarantee protesters' constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.

Aaron Hyman, fellow at the National Gallery of Art, said he could feel tension in the streets ahead of Trump's swearing-in and the heightened security was part of it.
"People are watching each other like, 'You must be a Trump supporter,' and 'You must be one of those liberals'," said Hyman, 32, who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the November election.
Friday's crowds are expected to fall well short of the 2 million people who attended Obama's first inauguration in 2009, and be in line with the 1 million who were at his second in 2013.
Forecast rain may also dampen the turnout, though security officials lifted an earlier ban on umbrellas, saying small umbrellas would be permitted.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu in Washigton, Curtis Skinner in San Francisco, and Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)





"It wasn't Donald Trump that divided this country, this country has been divided for a long time!" Stated today by Reverend Franklin Graham.



Trump gets facts wrong in attacks against NBC's "Today" show

No, Donald Trump, NBC's "Today" show is not doing "badly."

It is actually America's highest-rated morning show among 25- to 54-year-olds, the key demographic for advertisers, and it is just 100,000 viewers behind ABC's "Good Morning America" among all viewers.

The high-rated morning show attracted Trump's ire on Wednesday by broadcasting a report that cast doubt on his job-creating record.
The report -- part of a new franchise called "Today's Fact Check" -- called Trump's impact "very small or non-existent."
Trump called that assertion "fake news."
"Ask top CEO's of those companies for real facts," he wrote, insisting that packages of jobs "came back because of me!"
The facts are much more complicated. As NBC, CNN and other news outlets have reported, a number of big companies have announced previously-planned investments in the United States in ways that allow Trump to take credit.

"They have completely changed their P.R., many of these companies," CNN's Christine Romans said in a similar segment on "New Day" Wednesday morning.
"They want to de-emphasize their growth overseas and they want to re-emphasize that, 'Hey, we've always been growing here all along,'" she said.
So, anchor Alisyn Camerota responded, "now they're touting it in a way they didn't a year ago."
Of course, it is in the president-elect's interest to take credit for all job announcements. The pro-Trump web site Breitbart News has a running list of announcements titled "TRUMP JOBS BOOM."
The "Today" show report, by correspondent Ari Melber, said "companies are willing to deal with this as a P.R. issue," partly to avoid critical tweets from Trump.
Anchor Matt Lauer asked him: "If you had to rate the president-elect's impact on job creation or job preservation, over the course of this two month transition, how would you rate it?"
"According to the companies we hear from, it is very small or nonexistent," Melber said. "There's a fantasy football aura to all this. Because Donald Trump is saying things on the Internet, and then when companies do things, he'll selectively respond to it."
Trump responded to the report a few minutes later with a series of tweets, including one that read, "No wonder the Today Show on biased @NBC is doing so badly compared to its glorious past. Little credibility!"
The comment amused staffers at both NBC and its arch-rival ABC. Why? Because staffers at both networks follow the ratings race extremely closely. "Today" is doing quite well, contrary to Trump's claims.
While Trump was tweeting, another morning show competitor, "Fox & Friends" on Fox News, was airing an exclusive pre-taped interview with him.
NBC had no public response to Trump's criticisms, except to report on his tweets in the 8 a.m. hour of "Today."
But the network's web site coincidentally had a related headline on Wednesday morning. "Americans to Trump: Enough With the Tweets," the headline said, citing a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. According to the poll, 69% of Americans are wary of Trump's Twitter habit.
Trump said in an interview broadcast Wednesday morning on "Fox & Friends" that he doesn't "like to tweet," but has to use the social network to respond to the "dishonest media."

As president, Trump will have the option of taking over the official @POTUS Twitter handle or maintaining his own, @realDonaldTrump. With 20.1 million followers hanging on his every missive compared with @POTUS’s 13.5 million, Trump has given no indication he will make the switch.

Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary, told CNN earlier this month that Trump would “probably be tweeting from both, or whatever he chooses”. Last week, BuzzFeed News publicised concerns that Trump’s “shockingly insecure” personal Twitter account had no known special security protections and was open to being exploited with potentially devastating impacts for the stock market and geopolitical stability. It would not be the first time Trump’s account has been hacked: in 2013, when he was best-known as a real estate tycoon and host of The Apprentice TV show, someone reportedly gained access to his account to tweet Lil Wayne lyrics (“These hoes think they classy, well that’s the class I’m skippen”, from the remix of will.i.am and Britney Spear’s Scream & Shout). “My Twitter has been seriously hacked --- and we are looking for the perpetrators,” Trump tweeted at the time.

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 As Trump Era Arrives, a Sense of Uncertainty Grips the World


 
President-elect Donald J. Trump in the Trump Tower lobby on Monday. His remarks in a string of interviews have escalated tensions with China and infuriated allies. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times
LONDON — The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.
Just days before he is sworn into office, President-elect Donald J. Trump has again focused his penchant for unpredictable disruption on the rest of the world. His remarks in a string of discursive and sometimes contradictory interviews have escalated tensions with China while also infuriating allies and institutions critical to America’s traditional leadership of the West.
No one knows where exactly he is headed — except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin. For now. And that he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of Brexit and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.
Mr. Trump’s unpredictability is perhaps his most predictable characteristic. The world is accustomed to his provocative Twitter messages, but is less clear about whether his remarks represent meaningful new policy guidelines, personal judgments or passing whims. In the interviews, Mr. Trump described the European Union as “basically a vehicle for Germany” and predicted that the bloc would probably see other countries follow Britain’s example and vote to leave.
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Mr. Trump also said Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, had made a “catastrophic mistake” in allowing refugees to pour into Europe.

The barrage of inflammatory comments in joint interviews published Sunday and Monday in Britain and Germany elicited alarm and outrage in Europe, even as Ms. Merkel dryly characterized Mr. Trump’s positions as nothing new.
“They have been known for a while — my positions are also known,” Ms. Merkel said Monday in Berlin. “I think we Europeans have control of our destiny.”
Her clipped response came as officials and analysts struggled with how to interpret Mr. Trump’s remarks, as well as how to react to them.
Some argued that the president-elect’s words should be regarded as tactical, intended merely to keep his options open. But nearly everyone agreed that Mr. Trump had made trouble, especially in criticizing Ms. Merkel, given her importance as a figure of stability in Europe and her campaign for re-election later this year.
For good measure, Mr. Trump had also infuriated China by using an interview on Friday with The Wall Street Journal to again question China’s longstanding One China policy. It holds that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the mainland.

 
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in Berlin on Monday. Mr. Trump’s comments about her and how the European Union is “basically a vehicle for Germany” have damaged Ms. Merkel, who is running for re-election this year. Credit Oliver Weiken/European Pressphoto Agency
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said that anyone trying to use the status of Taiwan for negotiations would be “smashing their feet by lifting a rock” and would face broad and strong opposition from the Chinese government and people, as well as the international community. She added that “not everything in the world can be bargained or traded off.”
The English-language China Daily accused Mr. Trump on Monday of “playing with fire,” saying that if Taiwan became up for negotiation, as Mr. Trump suggested to The Journal, “Beijing will have no choice but to take off the gloves.”
Mr. Trump’s interviews in Europe have placed him right in the middle of the Continent’s most contentious issues. His critique of German dominance over the European Union is hardly a novel thought; many Europeans share the same complaints. But what is startling is how an incoming American president would make such a statement about a key ally and, in doing so, give succor to populist parties seeking to shatter the European political establishment.

In the interview published Monday in the German newspaper Bild and The Times of London, Mr. Trump also equated his trust of Ms. Merkel with his trust for Mr. Putin.
“I start off trusting both,” he said during the joint interview, which was conducted inside his office in Trump Tower in New York, “but let’s see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all.”
Certainly, Mr. Trump knows how to give a provocative interview. He repeated past criticisms that NATO is “obsolete” for supposedly not confronting terrorism, only to quickly add that “with that being said, NATO is very important to me.”
Mr. Trump’s comments “are a direct assault on the liberal order we’ve built since 1945 and a repudiation of the idea that the United States should lead the West,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a former senior State Department official and ambassador to NATO, who also advised the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.
“To say that NATO is obsolete, openly support the disintegration of the E.U. and then denigrate Merkel and put her on a par with Putin is a fundamental break with 70 years of American policy and strategic thought supported by Republicans from Eisenhower to now,” said Mr. Burns, who has served presidents of both parties. “NATO is the great power differential between the United States and Russia, as our Asian alliances are the power differential between us and China.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks almost certainly rankled Europe’s two most powerful leaders, Ms. Merkel and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain. Mr. Trump’s enthusiasm for Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, or Brexit — if welcomed by British officials, in general terms — has put considerably more pressure on Mrs. May. She is preparing to give a major speech on Tuesday about her Brexit plans, even as Mr. Trump promised to give Britain a quick and fair trade deal outside the European Union — a deal that cannot take place for at least two years until Britain leaves the bloc.
Awkwardly for her, one of the interviewers was Michael Gove, who strongly supported Brexit and ran for the Conservative leadership against Mrs. May, who immediately fired him from the cabinet. Mr. Trump’s first meeting with a British politician was with another May adversary, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP.
Ms. Merkel, who is known for her sang-froid and pragmatism, shrugged off Mr. Trump’s latest criticism, saying that what matters is what he does in office. “I am waiting for the president to be sworn into office. That is the way it is done,” she said. “And then, of course, I will work with him together.”


 
A newsstand in London. Mr. Trump’s enthusiasm for Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, or Brexit, has put considerably more pressure on the British prime minister, Theresa May. Credit Facundo Arrizabalaga/European Pressphoto Agency
The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was not so sanguine. Mr. Trump’s comments had “caused astonishment and commotion, and I’m sure not just in Brussels,” where he spoke on Monday before a monthly meeting of European Union foreign ministers.

Mr. Steinmeier said that he had just seen the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, and that there was continuing concern inside the military alliance.
“First, it goes against the statements of the nominated defense secretary a few days ago,” Mr. Steinmeier said. “We have to see what it will yield in terms of U.S. foreign policy. The same goes for the statements on trade policy. We count on the U.S. to stick to its international obligations, including in the World Trade Organization.”
Others cautioned against taking Mr. Trump’s words literally, at least for now. “I take all of this with a pinch of salt,” said Robin Niblett, the director of Chatham House, the London-based research institution. “I think Trump is trying to keep his options open and not be cornered by simply standing up for existing policy positions.”
Mr. Trump’s transition team will try to begin to smooth over some of the tensions on Tuesday in Washington, where the group planning his inauguration will host a black-tie dinner for members of the foreign diplomatic corps to mingle with prospective cabinet members, leaders of Congress and Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
President Obama’s departing ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, has used a series of exit interviews and speeches in recent days to urge the Germans to stay calm, not to overinterpret Twitter posts or view them as finished foreign policy. Mr. Emerson underscored that, while more clarity was needed, there were signs that Mr. Trump did value NATO and the promise of United States protection for European allies.
“It’s a very crucial issue, not just for European security, but for American security,” Mr. Emerson said. He noted that Mr. Trump “authorized President Obama when he came here on his trip shortly after the two of them met to reassure European partners of the full commitment to NATO. Now, we need to see what that means.”
Yet Europe is staring at a potentially transformative political year, with elections coming in the Netherlands, France and Germany, and possibly in Italy. Victories by populist parties could destabilize the European Union, and many European officials worry that Mr. Trump’s attacks are damaging.

Martin Schäfer, a spokesman for Mr. Steinmeier and the German Foreign Ministry, flatly rejected Mr. Trump’s comment in the interview that the European Union “is basically a vehicle for Germany.”
“Perhaps in times such as these, when order is crumbling, it is more important than ever that we want to, and must, stand together,” Mr. Schäfer said, underlining the post-World War II German stance that only through the country’s role in a larger European alliance are peace and prosperity guaranteed.
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France said Mr. Trump’s comments were an invitation to the bloc to stand united. “As is the case with Brexit,” he said, “the best way of defending Europe, and that is the invitation Mr. Trump has given to us, is to remain united as a bloc, not forgetting that the strength of Europeans lies in their unity.”
The British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who supported Brexit, emphasized Mr. Trump’s warm comments on the Anglo-American relationship. “I think it’s very good news that the U.S.A. wants to do a good free trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast,” he said. “Clearly it will have to be a deal that’s very much in the interests of both sides, but I have no doubt it will be.”




by David Morgan CBS News January 15, 2017, 2:02 PM

Scottish paper describes Trump inauguration as return of “The Twilight Zone”

Satirists and late-night comics have not spared President-elect Donald Trump -- and neither has a Scottish newspaper’s TV critic.
Sunday Herald reviewer Damien Love’s writeup for this Friday’s broadcast of the inauguration of the reality TV star as the 45th President of the United States characterized the proceedings as the return of “The Twilight Zone.”
The satirical TV review has since gone viral:
President Trump: The Inauguration
4pm, BBC One/STV

After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories – among the most common is the “What if The Nazis Had Won The Second World War” setting – but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present.
The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 in which huge sections of the US electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. Today’s feature-length opener concentrates on the gaudy inauguration of President Trump, and the stirrings of protest and despair surrounding the ceremony, while pundits speculate gravely on what lies ahead.
It’s a flawed piece, but a disturbing glimpse of the horrors we could stumble into, if we’re not careful.”
Twitter users praised the description as “brilliant,” and “genius,” and noted the paper’s “terrifying sense of humor.” 


Rod Serling’s classic series, which aired on CBS from 1959-1964, and which has been shown in syndication ever since, was renowned for presenting stories of science fiction, the supernatural and the uncanny, often with a twist ending.



  • David Morgan
    David Morgan is a senior editor at CBSNews.com and cbssundaymorning.com.



Study Finds Trump’s Grammar “Just Below 6th Grade Level”


Eloquence is a trait valued by debate team coaches but not necessarily needed for the White House. Though their supporters will always defend them, George Washington and George W. Bush are just two of many presidents considered poor public speakers — and there have been many commanders in chief in the two centuries between them who were not necessarily golden-tongued. Now, an academic paper has put some presidents and political candidates’ language on trial. “A Readability Analysis of Campaign Speeches From the 2016 US Presidential Campaign,” released this week by Carnegie Mellon University, analyzed stump speeches to measure their “readability” — the reading level of an address, ranked from first grade to 12th grade. And, according to a summary from the university, the study found “most candidates using words and grammar typical of students in grades 6-8, though Donald Trump tends to lag behind the others.” The story was more complicated than “Donald Trump can’t talk good,” however. First, the researchers needed a way to measure readability.“It is based on the observation that some words (and grammatical structures) appear with greater frequency at one grade level than another,” Maxine Eskenazi, a scientist in the university’s Language Technologies Institute, and Elliot Schumacher, a graduate student, wrote. “For example, we would expect that we could see the word ‘win’ fairly frequently in third grade documents while the word ‘successful’ would be more frequent in, say, seventh grade documents. We would not see dependent clauses very often at the second grade level whereas they would be quite frequent at the seventh grade level.” Then, they needed some speeches to analyze. “A database was collected containing documents from each of the [then] five current presidential candidates: Ted Cruz (5), Hillary Clinton (7), Marco Rubio (6), Bernie Sanders (6), Donald Trump (8),” the paper read. “… They range from the declaration of candidacy speech to campaign trail speeches to victory speeches to defeat speeches.” What about a historical comparison? “We also analyzed the readability of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address … and a speech from Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan,” the researchers wrote. The results showed that the level of our political discourse had deteriorated — partly because of Trump.? “Speeches by past presidents while on campaign and the Gettysburg Address were at least at the eighth grade level,” the paper read. “The candidates’ speeches mostly went from seventh grade level for Donald Trump to tenth grade level for Bernie Sanders.” The researchers also tried to measure “the degree to which the candidate changes their choice of words from one speech to another.” The result appeared to confirm the perception of Hillary Clinton as a chameleon.? “[Change] could reflect an effort to take into account the different audiences or circumstances (winning or concession speech in a state, for example),” they wrote. “We can see that Hilary Clinton has the highest standard deviation and so the biggest change of choice of words from one speech to another, while Ted Cruz varies the least in his choices.” Up next was a look at politicians’ grammar. “We see that George W. Bush had the lowest level and Abraham Lincoln the highest,” the paper read. “Amongst the candidates, levels are between sixth and seventh grades except for Donald Trump (grade 5.7).”
A summary of the study put this result in another light. The linguistic top of the pops, it turned out, was the Gettysburg Address — which came from the pen of a man with little formal schooling.
“In terms of grammar, none of the presidents and presidential candidates could compare with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address — an admittedly high standard, with grammar well above the 10th grade level,” the summary read. “The current candidates generally had scores between 6th and 7th grades, with Trump just below 6th grade level. President Bush scored at a 5th grade level.”

 

Vocabulary and Grammatical Comparison (Carnegie Mellon University)

The researchers, who used a measure of readability meant to account for differences between written and spoken language, noted that evaluating public speakers is not easy.
“Assessing the readability of campaign speeches is a little tricky because most measures are geared to the written word, yet text is very different from the spoken word,” Eskenazi said in a statement. “When we speak, we usually use less structured language with shorter sentences.”
Trump, for one, seems to intuit that many of his supporters are not grammarians.

Politics

Stephen King Just Summed Up Trump’s Attack On Meryl Streep Brilliantly

World-famous author Stephen King took to Twitter today to respond to Donald Trump’s Twitter tirade about actress Meryl Streep’s criticisms last night at the Golden Globes. As he so often does, King nails exactly what is disturbing about Trump’s hypersensitivity and the danger it presents to the American people. To be the leader of the United States of America requires a certain thickness of skin; a need to rise above slights real and perceived in order to put the good of the country before your own ego. But Trump is incapable of ignoring even the pettiest of slights.The presidency of the United States is perhaps the most emotionally taxing job in the world, and requires great personal strength and conviction to properly execute. The well-being of millions of people lie in the hands of the president, along with their very lives. Trump’s inability to let a perceived slight from an actress who didn’t even call him out by name – and his insistent need to insult and demean his critics – shows just how emotionally immature he is and how unqualified he is to lead this nation.

Friday January 13, 2017

Donald Trump news conference 'clear attack on the free press'

President-elect Donald Trump refused to answer questions from CNN at his first news conference, Jan 11, 2017, declaring the news outlet as 'fake news.'

President-elect Donald Trump refused to answer questions from CNN at his first news conference, Jan 11, 2017, declaring the news outlet as 'fake news.' (Evan Vucci/Associated Press)
Listen 19:13
Read story transcript

On Jan. 11, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump held his first press conference in months.
It was at this news conference Trump declared CNN as so-called "fake news" and refused to take questions relating to the network's report on unverified intelligence documents that suggests Russia has compromising information on the president-elect.
Some observers worry this move signals a presidency that is already taking an authoritarian tone. And it has journalists having to explore the best ways to cover the incoming U.S. administration.
"This is a clear attack on the free press. It's violating every norm and standard that we have in countries like the United States and Canada," policy analyst Jasmin Mujanović tells The Current's Friday host Laura Lynch.
"It's signaling that he intends to … fundamentally remake what it means to live in a republic of laws in the United States."
Media placeholder
Trump on fake news0:45
Mujanović says for observers and reporters of authoritarianism, Trump's behaviour sounds off all kinds of alarm bells.
"I don't think it's an accident that some of the most prescient analysis and critique that has come out over the last year year and a half has been from people who have studied authoritarianism, you know in the Middle East and Eastern Europe etc."
He tells Lynch that Trump normalizing lying on public record as a means of public policy and as a means of governance as well as normalizing fringe extreme movements, "are all incredible blaring red flags."
Political columnist Susan Delacourt takes issue with journalists in that news conference telling Lynch "they were egging [Trump] on and trying to get him to say something scandalous."
"It was kind of a dereliction of duty on the part of the media I thought."  
APTOPIX Trump
Trump's conduct at his recent news conference is 'not becoming of someone who purports to be the leader of the free world or at the very least the leader of a democratic republic,' says policy analyst Jasmin Mujanović. (Seth Wenig/Associated Press)
Delacourt says when politicians see the role of media as a marketing or advertising tool and not a public service, there's a problem.
"Donald Trump is a marketer. He's a businessman and he thinks that the media is there primarily to help him do his job and when it doesn't he's you know 'you're fired' or 'you're fake news' or he can shout them down." 
"The problem is is that the line between using the media for that purpose and then just discounting them altogether is it can be easily breached."
When it comes to holding Trump to account, Mujanović has little faith the media can make that happen.
"I don't want that to be interpreted as an attack on the media. I have colleagues who work in journalism. I just think that the issue is that reporters in the United States and Canada and large parts of Europe really have no first-hand experience with authoritarianism so to them this is this is entertainment. This is a circus."
Delacourt's advice to the Washington press corporations over the next four years:
"Don't allow yourself to be played off each other. Hang together."
"And remember that your job is a public service that sometimes competition between the media is not as important as the public service — a democratic rule of the media."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this web post.
This segment was produced by The Current's Pacinthe Mattar, Ines Colabrese and Sujata Berry.




How a Sensational, Unverified Dossier Became a Crisis for Donald Trump


WASHINGTON — Seven months ago, a respected former British spy named Christopher Steele won a contract to build a file on Donald J. Trump’s ties to Russia. Last week, the explosive details — unsubstantiated accounts of frolics with prostitutes, real estate deals that were intended as bribes and coordination with Russian intelligence of the hacking of Democrats — were summarized for Mr. Trump in an appendix to a top-secret intelligence report.
The consequences have been incalculable and will play out long past Inauguration Day. Word of the summary, which was also given to President Obama and congressional leaders, leaked to CNN Tuesday, and the rest of the media followed with sensational reports.
Mr. Trump denounced the unproven claims Wednesday as a fabrication, a Nazi-style smear concocted by “sick people.” It has further undermined his relationship with the intelligence agencies and cast a shadow over the new administration.
Late Wednesday night, after speaking with Mr. Trump, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, issued a statement decrying leaks about the matter and saying of Mr. Steele’s dossier that the intelligence agencies have “not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable.” Mr. Clapper suggested that intelligence officials had nonetheless shared it to give policy makers “the fullest possible picture of any matters that might affect national security.”


Parts of the story remain out of reach — most critically the basic question of how much, if anything, in the dossier is true. But it is possible to piece together a rough narrative of what led to the current crisis, including lingering questions about the ties binding Mr. Trump and his team to Russia. The episode also offers a glimpse of the hidden side of presidential campaigns, involving private sleuths-for-hire looking for the worst they can find about the next American leader.
The story began in September 2015, when a wealthy Republican donor who strongly opposed Mr. Trump put up the money to hire a Washington research firm run by former journalists, Fusion GPS, to compile a dossier about the real estate magnate’s past scandals and weaknesses, according to a person familiar with the effort. The person described the opposition research work on condition of anonymity, citing the volatile nature of the story and the likelihood of future legal disputes. The identity of the donor is unclear.
Fusion GPS, headed by a former Wall Street Journal journalist known for his dogged reporting, Glenn Simpson, most often works for business clients. But in presidential elections, the firm is sometimes hired by candidates, party organizations or donors to do political “oppo” work — shorthand for opposition research — on the side.
It is routine work and ordinarily involves creating a big, searchable database of public information: past news reports, documents from lawsuits and other relevant data. For months, Fusion GPS gathered the documents and put together the files from Mr. Trump’s past in business and entertainment, a rich target.
After Mr. Trump emerged as the presumptive nominee in the spring, the Republican interest in financing the effort ended. But Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton were very interested, and Fusion GPS kept doing the same deep dives, but on behalf of new clients.
In June, the tenor of the effort suddenly changed. The Washington Post reported that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, apparently by Russian government agents, and a mysterious figure calling himself “Guccifer 2.0” began to publish the stolen documents online.
Mr. Simpson hired Mr. Steele, a former British intelligence officer with whom he had worked before. Mr. Steele, in his early 50s, had served undercover in Moscow in the early 1990s and later was the top expert on Russia at the London headquarters of Britain’s spy service, MI6. When he stepped down in 2009, he started his own commercial intelligence firm, Orbis Business Intelligence.
The former journalist and the former spy, according to people who know them, had similarly dark views of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a former K.G.B. officer, and the varied tactics he and his intelligence operatives used to smear, blackmail or bribe their targets.
As a former spy who had carried out espionage inside Russia, Mr. Steele was in no position to travel to Moscow to study Mr. Trump’s connections there. Instead, he hired native Russian speakers to call informants inside Russia and made surreptitious contact with his own connections in the country as well.

Mr. Steele wrote up his findings in a series of memos, each a few pages long, that he began to deliver to Fusion GPS in June and continued at least until December. By then, the election was over, and neither Mr. Steele nor Mr. Simpson was being paid by a client, but they did not stop what they believed to be very important work. (Mr. Simpson declined to comment for this article, and Mr. Steele did not immediately reply to a request for comment.)
The memos described two different Russian operations. The first was a yearslong effort to find a way to influence Mr. Trump, perhaps because he had contacts with Russian oligarchs whom Mr. Putin wanted to keep track of. According to Mr. Steele’s memos, it used an array of familiar tactics: the gathering of “kompromat,” compromising material such as alleged tapes of Mr. Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel, and proposals for business deals attractive to Mr. Trump.
The goal would probably never have been to make Mr. Trump a knowing agent of Russia, but to make him a source who might provide information to friendly Russian contacts. But if Mr. Putin and his agents wanted to entangle Mr. Trump using business deals, they did not do it very successfully. Mr. Trump has said he has no major properties there, though one of his sons said at a real estate conference in 2008 that “a lot of money” was “pouring in from Russia.”
The second Russian operation described was recent: a series of contacts with Mr. Trump’s representatives during the campaign, in part to discuss the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta. According to Mr. Steele’s sources, it involved, among other things, a late-summer meeting in Prague between Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, and Oleg Solodukhin, a Russian official who works for Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization that promotes Russia’s interests abroad.


By all accounts, Mr. Steele has an excellent reputation with American and British intelligence colleagues and had done work for the F.B.I. on the investigation of bribery at FIFA, soccer’s global governing body. Colleagues say he was acutely aware of the danger he and his associates were being fed Russian disinformation. Russian intelligence had mounted a complex hacking operation to damage Mrs. Clinton, and a similar operation against Mr. Trump was possible.
But much of what he was told, and passed on to Fusion GPS, was very difficult to check. And some of the claims that can be checked seem problematic. Mr. Cohen, for instance, said on Twitter on Tuesday night that he has never been in Prague; Mr. Solodukhin, his purported Russian contact, denied in a telephone interview that he had ever met Mr. Cohen or anyone associated with Mr. Trump. The president-elect on Wednesday cited news reports that a different Michael Cohen with no Trump ties may have visited Prague and that the two Cohens might have been mixed up in Mr. Steele’s reports.
But word of a dossier had begun to spread through political circles. Rick Wilson, a Republican political operative who was working for a super PAC supporting Marco Rubio, said he heard about it in July, when an investigative reporter for a major news network called him to ask what he knew.
By early fall, some of Mr. Steele’s memos had been given to the F.B.I., which was already investigating Mr. Trump’s Russian ties, and to journalists. An MI6 official, whose job does not permit him to be quoted by name, said that in late summer or early fall, Mr. Steele also passed the reports he had prepared on Mr. Trump and Russia to British intelligence. Mr. Steele was concerned about what he was hearing about Mr. Trump, and he thought that the information should not be solely in the hands of people looking to win a political contest.

After the election, the memos, still being supplemented by his inquiries, became one of Washington’s worst-kept secrets, as reporters — including from The New York Times — scrambled to confirm or disprove them.
Word also reached Capitol Hill. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, heard about the dossier and obtained a copy in December from David J. Kramer, a former top State Department official who works for the McCain Institute at Arizona State University. Mr. McCain passed the information to James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director.
Remarkably for Washington, many reporters for competing news organizations had the salacious and damning memos, but they did not leak, because their contents could not be confirmed. (Mother Jones magazine was an exception, publishing a story on Oct. 31 that described the dossier, its origin and significance, while omitting the titillating details.) That changed only this week, after the heads of the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency added a summary of the memos, along with information gathered from other intelligence sources, to their report on the Russian cyberattack on the election.
Now, after the most contentious of elections, Americans are divided and confused about what to believe about the incoming president. And there is no prospect soon for full clarity on the veracity of the claims made against him.
“It is a remarkable moment in history,” said Mr. Wilson, the Florida political operative. “What world did I wake up in?”

Jonathan Martin, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on January 12, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: How a Crisis Spilled Out of a Sensational, Unverified Dossier.

McCain unloads on Putin during Mattis confirmation hearing: ‘He needs us as his enemy’


McCain unloads on Putin during Mattis confirmation hearing: ‘He needs us as his enemy’


Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) unloaded on Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday during Defense Secretary-designate Gen. James Mattis’ confirmation hearing.
McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that, under Putin, Russia has “invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea, threatened NATO allies, intervened militarily in Syria, leaving a trail of death and destruction and broken promises in his wake.”
“Russia’s military has targeted Syrian hospitals and first responders with precision weapons,” McCain added. “Russia supplied the weapons that shot down a commercial aircraft in Ukraine. Russia’s war on Ukraine has killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.”
The senator pointed out that Putin’s “disrespect for our nation” is evidenced by Russia’s deliberate interference in the November election through “cyber attacks and a disinformation campaign designed to weaken America and discredit Western values.”
McCain said that he has watched three presidents fail to improve relations with Russia — and those failures were not due to “a lack of good faith and effort on the U.S. side”: “Putin wants to be our enemy. He needs us as his enemy. He will never be our partner, including in fighting ISIL. He believes that strengthening Russia means weakening America.”
“We must proceed realistically on this basis,” McCain continued, adding that the United States must display strength to any “adversary that seeks to undermine our national interest and challenge the world order.”











Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we share a very special gift by beloved and very popular Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor member Letizia Mancino.


We know you'll enjoy it as much as we do.

Thanks a Million, dear Letizia Mancino.


You are an outstanding writer and artist.

We are so proud and happy to have you with us.

Letizia writes: One should not underestimate Wolfgang Hampel’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty MacDonald’s friends.

We agree. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang Hampel for doing this. You founded Betty MacDonald Fan Club with four members.

Now we have members in 40 countries around the world. A dream came true.

Mary Holmes did an excellent job in translating this great story. 


Thank you so much dear Mary Holmes. 


We are really very grateful.

All the best to Letizia, Wolfgang and Mary and to all Betty MacDonald Fan Club fans from all over the world!

Lenard



Following in Betty’s footsteps in Seattle:

or some small talk with Betty

Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
translated by Mary Holmes

We were going to Canada in the summer. “When we are in Edmonton”, I said to Christoph Cremer, “let’s make a quick trip to Seattle”. And that’s how it happened. At Edmonton Airport we climbed into a plane and two hours later we landed in the city where Betty had lived. I was so happy to be in Seattle at last and to be able to trace Betty’s tracks!

Wolfgang Hampel had told Betty’s friends about our arrival.
They were happy to plan a small marathon through the town and it’s surroundings with us. We only had a few days free. One should not underestimate Wolfgang’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty’s friends, even though it was holiday time. E-mails flew backwards and forwards between Heidelberg and Seattle, and soon a well prepared itinerary was ready for us. Shortly before my departure Wolfgang handed me several parcels, presents for Betty MacDonald's friends. I rushed to pack the heavy gifts in my luggage but because of the extra weight had to throw out a pair of pajamas!

After we had landed we took a taxi to the Hotel in downtown Seattle. I was so curious to see everything. I turned my head in all directions like one of the hungry hens from Betty’s farm searching for food! Fortunately it was quite a short journey otherwise I would have lost my head like a loose screw!
Our hotel room was on the 22nd floor and looked directly out onto the 16-lane highway. There might have been even more than 16 but it made me too giddy to count! It was like a glimpse of hell! “And is this Seattle?” I asked myself. I was horrified! The cars racing by were enough to drive one mad. The traffic roared by day and night.
We immediately contacted Betty MacDonald's friends and let them know we had arrived and they confirmed the times when we should see them.

On the next morning I planned my first excursion tracing Betty’s tracks. I spread out the map of Seattle. “Oh dear” I realized “the Olympic Peninsula is much too far away for me to get there.”
Betty nodded to me! “Very difficult, Letizia, without a car.”

“But I so much wanted to see your chicken farm”

“My chickens are no longer there and you can admire the mountains from a distance”

But I wanted to go there. I left the hotel and walked to the waterfront where the State Ferry terminal is. Mamma mia, the streets in Seattle are so steep! I couldn’t prevent my feet from running down the hill. Why hadn’t I asked for brakes to be fixed on my shoes? I looked at the drivers. How incredibly good they must be to accelerate away from the red traffic lights. The people were walking uphill towards me as briskly as agile salmon. Good heavens, these Americans! I tried to keep my balance. The force of gravity is relentless. I grasped hold of objects where I could and staggered down.
In Canada a friend had warned me that in Seattle I would see a lot of people with crutches.

Betty laughed. “ It’s not surprising, Letizia, walking salmon don’t fall directly into the soft mouth of a bear!”
“ Betty, stop making these gruesome remarks. We are not in Firlands!”

I went further. Like a small deranged ant at the foot of a palace monster I came to a tunnel. The noise was unbearable. On the motorway, “The Alaskan Way Viaduct”, cars, busses and trucks were driving at the speed of light right over my head. They puffed out their poisonous gas into the open balconies and cultivated terraces of the luxurious sky- scrapers without a thought in the world. America! You are crazy!
“Betty, are all people in Seattle deaf? Or is it perhaps a privilege for wealthy people to be able to enjoy having cars so near to their eyes and noses to save them from boredom?”

“When the fog democratically allows everything to disappear into nothing, it makes a bit of a change, Letizia”

“ Your irony is incorrigible, Betty, but tell me, Seattle is meant to be a beautiful city, But where?”

I had at last reached the State Ferry terminal.

“No Madam, the ferry for Vashon Island doesn’t start from here,” one of the men in the ticket office tells me. ”Take a buss and go to the ferry terminal in West Seattle.”
Betty explained to me “The island lies in Puget Sound and not in Elliott Bay! It is opposite the airport. You must have seen it when you were landing!”
“Betty, when I am landing I shut my eyes and pray!”

It’s time for lunch. The weather is beautiful and warm. Who said to me that it always rains here?
“Sure to be some envious man who wanted to frighten you away from coming to Seattle. The city is really beautiful, you’ll see. Stay by the waterfront, choose the best restaurant with a view of Elliott Bay and enjoy it.”
“Thank you Betty!”

I find a table on the terrace of “Elliott’s Oyster House”. The view of the island is wonderful. It lies quietly in the sun like a green fleecy cushion on the blue water.
Betty plays with my words:
“Vashon Island is a big cushion, even bigger than Bainbridge which you see in front of your eyes, Letizia. The islands look similar. They have well kept houses and beautiful gardens”.

I relax during this introduction, “Bainbridge” you are Vashon Island, and order a mineral water.

“At one time the hotel belonging to the parents of Monica Sone stood on the waterfront.”
“Oh, of your friend Kimi!” Unfortunately I forget to ask Betty exactly where it was.

My mind wanders and I think of my mountain hike back to the hotel! “Why is there no donkey for tourists?” Betty laughs:

“I’m sure you can walk back to the hotel. “Letizia can do everything.””

“Yes, Betty, I am my own donkey!”

But I don’t remember that San Francisco is so steep. It doesn’t matter, I sit and wait. The waiter comes and brings me the menu. I almost fall off my chair!
“ What, you have geoduck on the menu! I have to try it” (I confess I hate the look of geoduck meat. Betty’s recipe with the pieces made me feel quite sick – I must try Betty’s favourite dish!)
“Proof that you love me!” said Betty enthusiastically “ Isn’t the way to the heart through the stomach?”

I order the geoduck. The waiter looks at me. He would have liked to recommend oysters.
“Geoduck no good for you!”
Had he perhaps read my deepest thoughts? Fate! Then no geoduck. “No good for me.”

“Neither geoduck nor tuberculosis in Seattle” whispered Betty in my ear!
“Oh Betty, my best friend, you take such good care of me!”

I order salmon with salad.

“Which salmon? Those that swim in water or those that run through Seattle?”

“Betty, I believe you want me to have a taste of your black humour.”

“Enjoy it then, Letizia.”

During lunch we talked about tuberculosis, and that quite spoilt our appetite.

“Have you read my book “The Plague and I”?”

“Oh Betty, I’ve started to read it twice but both times I felt so sad I had to stop again!”

“But why?” asked Betty “Nearly everybody has tuberculosis! I recovered very quickly and put on 20 pounds! There was no talk of me wasting away! What did you think of my jokes in the book?”

“Those would have been a good reason for choosing another sanitorium. I would have been afraid of becoming a victim of your humour! You would have certainly given me a nickname! You always thought up such amusing names!” Betty laughed.

“You’re right. I would have called you “Roman nose”. I would have said to Urbi and Orbi “ Early this morning “Roman nose” was brought here. She speaks broken English, doesn’t eat geoduck but she does love cats.”

“Oh Betty, I would have felt so ashamed to cough. To cough in your presence, how embarrassing! You would have talked about how I coughed, how many coughs!”

“It depends on that “how”, Letizia!”

“Please, leave Goethe quotations out of it. You have certainly learnt from the Indians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incredible how you can distinguish between so many sorts of cough! At least 10!”

“So few?”

”And also your descriptions of the patients and the nurses were pitiless. An artistic revenge! The smallest pimple on their face didn’t escape your notice! Amazing.”

“ I was also pitiless to myself. Don’t forget my irony against myself!”

Betty was silent. She was thinking about Kimi, the “Princess” from Japan! No, she had only written good things about her best friend, Monica Sone, in her book “The Plague and I”. A deep friendship had started in the hospital. The pearl that developed from the illness.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Betty, that an unknown seed can make its way into a mollusk in the sea and develop into a beautiful jewel?” Betty is paying attention.

“Betty, the friendship between you and Monica reminds me of Goethe’s poem “Gingo-Biloba”. You must know it?” Betty nods and I begin to recite it:


The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.

Is it one living thing.
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?

The friendship with Monica is like the wonderful gingo-biloba leaf, the tree from the east. Betty was touched. There was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“Our friendship never broke up, partly because she was in distress, endangered by the deadly illness. We understood and supplemented each other. We were like one lung with two lobes, one from the east and one from the west!”
“A beautiful picture, Betty. You were like two red gingo-biloba leaves!”

Betty was sad and said ” Monica, although Japanese, before she really knew me felt she was also an American. But she was interned in America, Letizia, during the second world war. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Betty, I never knew her personally. I have only seen her on a video, but what dignity in her face, and she speaks and moves so gracefully!”

“Fate could not change her”

“Yes, Betty, like the gingo-biloba tree in Hiroshima. It was the only tree that blossomed again after the atom bomb!”

The bill came and I paid at once. In America one is urged away from the table when one has finished eating. If one wants to go on chatting one has to order something else.
“That’s why all those people gossiping at the tables are so fat!” Betty remarks. “Haven’t you seen how many massively obese people walk around in the streets of America. Like dustbins that have never been emptied!” With this typically unsentimental remark Betty ended our conversation.

Ciao! I so enjoyed the talk; the humour, the irony and the empathy. I waved to her and now I too felt like moving! I take a lovely walk along the waterfront.

Now I am back in Heidelberg and when I think about how Betty’s “Princessin” left this world on September 5th and that in August I was speaking about her with Betty in Seattle I feel very sad. The readers who knew her well (we feel that every author and hero of a book is nearer to us than our fleeting neighbours next door) yes we, who thought of her as immortal, cannot believe that even she would die after 92 years. How unforeseen and unexpected that her death should come four days after her birthday on September 1th. On September 5th I was on my way to Turkey, once again in seventh heaven, looking back on the unforgettable days in Seattle. I was flying from west to east towards the rising sun.



Ein lyrisches Portrait von Hilde Domin
Anne MacDonald Canham

 




 









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Is this Mr. Tigerli?


Dare we face the question of just how much of the darkness around us is of our own making? - Betty MacDonald
Betty MacDonald ART Photos of ICONS Amazing Ladies Pinter Betty MacDonald Quotes Famous Quotes by Betty MacDonald Quoteswave 1950s showing Betty MacDonald descending a staircase and other images  betty macdonald betty bard macdonald wurde 1908 in boulder colorado  photos and graphics betty family betty and friend photos and graphics betty family betty grandchild photo of Betty MacDonald and two children in 1950 costumes Click images for alternate views BETTY MacDONALD PHOTOGRAPH SIGNED DOCUMENT 281143  photos and graphics betty family betty and don on vashon  
          



Betty MacDonald









Take an illustrated day trip through Washington state’s largest city with artist Candace Rose Rardon.
gadventures.com




Linda White yes,if my health allows.I have a few problems but is something I have always wanted to do,especially as I reread her books.


Linde Lund


Linde Lund Dear Linda I'll keep you posted.


Bella Dillon


Bella Dillon · Friends with Darsie Beck
I still read Mrs Piggle Wiggle books to this day. I love her farm on vashon.




Lila Taylor


Lila Taylor Good morning...Linde Lund
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