No one hates First Lady Melania. No one. Her husband is wrong.

I have to agree with Ms. Baty, she looks well rested.

Some of what is heard regarding the First Lady that the President believes is a bad press; is the fact First Lady Michelle Obama was heavily ridiculed by the right wing press, especially the talk radio bunch. So, some of the negativity the First Lady is receiving is retribution (something the President understands well) for the lousy press First Lady Michelle receives. Former First Lady Michelle still is picked on by Talk Radio. Heaven forbid she should make a public statement about anything, FOX News and Talk Radio are all about defaming her.

So, while some folks may want to apologize to First Lady Melania, there are many who need to make an apology to Former First Lady Michelle Obama. Knowing that will never happen, there is no one that sincerely hates First Lady Melania. Most Americans are glad she is okay and rested. She is our First Lady and she really does love the USA and does her best at fulfilling her duties. 

There are those in the fashion industry that boycott any aspect of First Lady Melania's wardrobe. This may or may not be due to her statements about the LGBT community, so much as her husbands'. But, as she said, she agrees with her husband on many things and that is common among political wives.

So, if the fashion industry disapproves of the treatment of LGBT Americans by the Trump administration it is their right to protest in a way that will make that statement. The First Lady's wardrobe is one of those protests and most probably the few magazine articles about her to date also represents that reluctance to reward her with attention when she is very controversial as well. Does any fashion designer or magazine editor want to run the risk of her legitimizing the position of her husband when there would be a backlash? Of course not and I don't blame them.

June 6, 2018
By Emma Baty

Melania Trump (click here) just made her first appearance in 27 days, following a kidney procedure on May 14. 

She and her husband Donald were at FEMA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. listening to a briefing on hurricane preparedness, and Donald said she's "doing great" after the surgery.

“She went through a little rough patch but she’s doing great,” Trump said. “The people of our country love you. Thank you, honey.”

One of the reporters there said that Melania was “looking well, like her old self, perfectly healthy from at least her outward appearance.” She didn't speak at the event, according to the reporters. Earlier this week, Donald tweeted to criticize how the media speculated about Melania's absence....

The #MeToo movement is having far reaching implications.

Miss America no longer will have a swimsuit competition.

Go, Gretchen Carlson, Go.

There is some discussion about a "Fitness Component." I think that is a good idea, but, it should not be an on-stage performance issue. The fitness component can be part of the preliminary requirements at the grassroots level and then verified at any competition all the way to the final Miss America pageant.

Can a woman be that skinny and still be healthy and fit? We will find out.

June 5, 2018
By Matthew Haag and Cara Buckley

For the first time (click here) in nearly a century, Miss America contestants will not strut onstage in swimsuits this year, the organizers announced on Tuesday, as the pageant tries to redefine its role in an era of female empowerment and gender equality.

Miss America and swimsuits have been synonymous since its first contest in 1921 on the Atlantic City boardwalk. But what started as contestants wearing one-piece bathing suits, conservative by today’s standards, became women in revealing bikinis and high heels parading around for a leering television audience.

Now under mostly female leadership, the Miss America Organization said Tuesday that it was scrapping the swimsuit competition, starting at the national contest in September, in a sweeping change that will also reshape local and state contests....

The success of the #MeToo movement continues...

June 6, 2018
By David Jackson, Jennifer Smith Richards, Gary Marx and Juan Perez Jr.

They were top athletes (click here) and honor-roll students, children struggling to read and teenagers seeking guidance.

But then they became prey, among the many students raped or sexually abused during the last decade by trusted adults working in the Chicago Public Schools as district officials repeated obvious child-protection mistakes.

Their lives were upended, their futures clouded and their pain unacknowledged as a districtwide problem was kept under wraps. A Tribune analysis indicates that hundreds of students were harmed.

Drawing on police data, public and confidential records, and interviews with teens and young adults who spoke out, a Tribune investigation broke through the silence and secrecy surrounding these cases and found that:

When students summoned the courage to disclose abuse, teachers and principals failed to alert child welfare investigators or police despite the state’s mandated reporter law....

The students are being taken seriously because a candidate for election started a political attack based on the statistics from the Chicago Public Schools. Mayor Rahm Emanuel (click here) has apologized for the circumstances children faced, but, wants a dialogue to end the loop holes and abuse that has allowed the problems to exist in the first place. There are brave students, parents and teachers willing to talk to authorities about their experiences, in the same brave manner the first #MeToo victims disclosed their experiences.

The #MeToo movement is successful. It is successful in the USA and internationally and now it is successful in the image of the American woman and the children abused within their lives at school have now found a voice.

Some Republicans are beginning to realize the agenda and lies of President Trump.

The only problem is that in order to actually speak out about the truth and end Trump lies, the Republican has to be finishing up their term and not running again for the seat in Congress.

June 6, 2018
By Melanie Zanona

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) (click here) on Wednesday pushed back against President Trump’s “spygate” claims, siding with Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) defense of the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s campaign and Russia.

“Chairman Gowdy’s initial assessment is accurate, but we have more digging to do,” Ryan told reporters during his weekly news conference.

While both Ryan and Gowdy received a closed-door briefing on the bureau’s use of an informant in the investigation, there is still an outstanding request to view the underlying documents to support the briefing.

"We have some more documents to review. We still have some unanswered questions... If we got all the information we were looking for, we could wrap this up faster," Ryan said.

"I have seen no evidence to the contrary of the initial assessment Chairman Gowdy has made. But I want to make sure that we run every lead down and make sure we get final answers to these questions."

A week after the closed-door briefing, Gowdy told CBS News that he had seen no evidence to support Trump’s claims that a “spy” was improperly inserted into his 2016 campaign.

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, who is retiring, said he did not believe the FBI had done anything out of bounds in its investigation, and defended the use of informants by the bureau and other law enforcement agencies....

June 6, 2018
By Rebecca Klein

Testifying (click here) before the Senate appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the Federal Commission on School Safety, which she chairs, will not look at the role of guns in a recent spate of school shootings.

In an exchange with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), DeVos said it is “not part of the commission’s charge per se” to look at the role of firearms as it relates to gun violence. Instead, DeVos said the commission will study “school safety and how we can ensure our students are safe at school.”

Leahy asked DeVos if she thinks an 18-year-old should be able to buy AR-15-style guns and ammunition.

“I believe that’s very much a matter for debate, and I know that’s been debated within this body and will continue to be,” DeVos replied. “Our focus is on raising up successful proven techniques and approaches to ensuring schools are safe for students to attend.”...

Republicans have a problem and if they don't they should.

Republicans are not "Making America Great Again," they are however "Making America White Again." There is huge racism, bigotry and discrimination within the Republican Party. They don't say the words but it is there in very big measure and they count on the White Supremacists to bring home their election. That is a problem they have and they need to shed it.

June 8, 2018
By Olivia Ovenden

Trump's outrage at NFL athletes protesting police injustice (click here) by taking a knee during the national anthem proves just how much he values honouring the US through song.

Trump is like, really, really patriotic OK? Nobody is more patriotic than him, really.

Except perhaps he isn't, judging by a clip from a rally in which the Donald appears to forget the lyrics to 'God Bless America'.

The event was held yesterday after Trump 'cancelled' the Philadelphia Eagles visit to the White House after realising nobody was going to turn up.

"Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!" he tweeted....

There has been catastrophic changes in the USA's "Rule of Law" that continually remove Civil Rights from the American landscape. The assault on the Voting Rights Act of 1964 that now allows racism in places where it was banded for 50 years. That was the sweetener entering the party that paved the way for the blatant hatred we see today within the Republican Party. The display yesterday of nationalism rather than inclusion of all concerns of every race; was shameful.

Flying the flag is legal everywhere, no one suppresses it. The flag represents our freedom and not our country in any state of disrepair. The freedom of African American citizens is under attack, therefore, the flag is not being appropriately displayed and is used in the definition of nationalism to deny identity of the assault on some Americans.

Come forward from the assault on the Voting Right Act of 1964 and there was the Supreme Court decision stating a Christian baker can discriminate who he will make cakes for when it comes to a wedding. Well, the decision has far reaching consequences, including an assault on Colorado's civil rights laws.

The "Bad Bakery" decision is a well veiled attack on civil rights. It was an outrageous decision and I cannot believe only two justices opposed the action of a man that hates the LGBTQ community. That is pure hatred. There is no central religious authority such as the Pope stating if you bake a cake for the Gay Couple, you are destined to hell. The Robert's Court decision is egregious. I don't know what someone put in the Justices coffee or tea the day of the vote, but, it is a deranged decision.

The more and more decisions made in the courts and legislation passed, including the idiotic abortion law of Iowa, the more the USA is looking like a White Man's Country.

June 1, 2018

Inside the Family Leader’s (click here) office near Des Moines, Iowa, photographs of Republican presidential contenders past grace the walls. Housing secretary Ben Carson, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, Texas senator Ted Cruz all stand frozen onstage, informing visitors of the Family Leader’s influence.

Alongside them is the group’s president, Bob Vander Plaats, a member of a coalition of abortion foes who worked in Iowa to pass one of the industrialized world’s most restrictive bans on abortion. In one portrait, Donald Trump’s face looms over Vander Plaats speaking to a congregation, heads bowed....

Do not believe for one minute the topics that send Liberals and Moderates reeling is going away soon. There is a lot of money, ie: Kochs, at work in providing a social group of people that will definitely vote for the candidate willing to act on their demands. This isn't going away until the electorate turns to candidates that can govern and not simply harness power of the USA for their own purposes. It is no skin off Trump's nose to demand the end of abortion rights for women or end voting rights for minorities and women. The list of on the agenda of these wacko extremist Christians are very invasive into most American's life, but, what difference does it make to a Republican candidate if they can benefit from extremism?

The Christians have left their Bibles in the pew and have taken up organizing an assaultive political agenda that companies such as the Kochs intend to see happy all the days of their lives.

4 June 2018
By David Taylor

A statue outside a megachurch in Tennessee that proclaims: ‘America Return to Christ.

The emboldened religious right (click here) has unleashed a wave of legislation across the United States since Donald Trump became president, as part of an organised bid to impose hardline Christian values across American society.

A playbook known as Project Blitz, developed by a collection of Christian groups, has provided state politicians with a set of off-the-shelf pro-Christian “model bills”.

Some legislation uses verbatim language from the “model bills” created by a group called the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF), set up by a former Republican congressman which has a stated aim to “protect religious freedom, preserve America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promote prayer”...

...Opponents warn that the CPCF (which claims more than 600 politicians as members across state legislatures ) is using the banner of “religious freedom” to impose Christianity on American public, political and cultural life.

In Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee, so-called “In God We Trust” bills have become law since 2017, which will see the phrase emblazoned on public buildings, hung in schools and displayed on the side of public vehicles including police cars.

But the Project Blitz playbook sees those largely symbolic bills as just the first stage on the way to more hardline laws. They are presented as measures to preserve religious liberty, but are intended to give businesses, pastors and childcare providers the right to discriminate against LGBT people in line with their “sincerely held religious beliefs”....

"Project Blitz" (click here) Project Blitz is a Christian Agenda that says nothing about diversity, inclusion of all people and certainly doesn't entertain other religions standing on equal footing with their ideas of faith.

There is no room for anything, but, Christ. Their attitudes are justified by "If the Muslims or the Catholics believe they have the one true God, then they should be doing the same as we are."

Category 2 Resolutions and Proclamations Recognizing the Importance of Religious History and Freedom

Items for Inclusion in a Proclamation Recognizing Religious Freedom Day or Christian Heritage Week or Bible in History or Recognizing the Year of the Bible or Recognizing Christmas Day (Maybe this was an agenda item before Bill O'Reilly left FOX News). There is nothing here about Ramadan, *Rosh Hashanah, Navaratri/Dassehra, Mawlid-al-Nabi or the Lunar New Year. They like to state their focus is Religious Freedom, but, that is already in the First Amendment to the USA Constitution. Not only is it in the amendment, it is in the First Amendment. There is no need to set aside in special legislation Christian emphasis. As a matter of fact, it should be more humble.

And they are after children: Page 50


The religious idolatry of the Christian Conservatives are already removing children from homes that are considered Pagan, such as Wiccans (case in point - click here - parents were forced to sign off the children or be threatened with more false prosecution), in North Carolina and possibly other states. The false charges are drafted and the children are given to "Foster Parents for Adoption." The parents are then pleaded out so they can not get their children back because they now have a criminal record of arrest.

The modern day Foster Parent has to be certified through a preparation program called "Pride." There are minority number of Foster Parents simply taking care of children until their extended family or parents are again ready for them. Most Foster Parents these days are "Foster Parents for Adoption" and go through not just "Pride 1" but also "Pride 2." 

I have to think the children taken away from the border crossers at the USA Border are never going to be returned to their parents who are more than likely Roman Catholic. Those children will be absorbed into public adoption networks and handed out like candy to those that have been "Certified as Parents."

America needs to wake up. The idea the warning of fascism, touted as a political directive by right wing extremists, is a lie and only a personal attack against a candidate. If the candidate in this modern era of computer elections is saying he will pass legislation that will deny "certain" people adoption in the sovereign USA, THEY MEAN IT. 

Get over it America, there is an extremist element in the country with lots of money to spend and they have created an underclass of Christian extremists that will follow every dog whistle provided to insure the USA is Christian Fundamentalists from sea to shining sea. Once such fanaticism overtakes the USA, it is easy to bring violence into the country by authorities that will be admired regardless of their law breaking.

The USA is not a perfect place to raise children as the Christians of "Project Blitz" wants it, but, if the guns were not flowing like water (which they advocate) it might have half a chance of being perfect for children from highly diverse parenting PERSONS and STYLES.

When is mental health going to become stylish again?

She was magnificent and the world is missing a vital piece today. 

There was a time in the USA when "Who are you being treated by?" was a fashion statement as much as a mental health statement.

The silence surrounding mental health is just not fair and now the world has lost Kate Spade. We should all be ashamed of ourselves and the lack of truth that exists in our society and on social media. There are a go-zillion support groups on social media, so why aren't we having talks face to face?

Someone like Kate, an accomplished woman, would not turn to social media for support and why not? Her fans were in the real world and she was missing them as much as they were missing her. Perhaps neither knew how deeply they were committed to each other.

Back in the 1960s there was a trend among women that took them to a "shrink's office" every week. It was when they would put their feet up on a couch and talk about everything that bothers them, including the old washer and dryer and how much they deserved a new pair.

Everyone who was anybody had a Shrink story to talk about when they met for coffee. The topics included the kids, the house, the car, but, also their husbands and immediately after talking about "him" they would talk about their psychiatrists.

In the 60's it was the duty of the psychiatrist to assign a dose of Valium to the "One A Day" vitamin pills. We don't need the Valium dependency anymore, but, we do need to be able to harness the expertise of psychiatrists that will let women talk about themselves and their lives all they want.

I think there is a built in "sore spot" in every woman's life whereby they are shorter, lighter and the world an edge more dangerous because of their beauty and sexuality; so the reasons to be on a "Shrink's couch" once a week are valid for anyone feeling their life is not what they wanted it to be.

The reasons a successful woman such as Kate Spade would slip off the edge without saying a word, are many. Success brings all kinds of complications to a woman's life. Considering how successful women are given their presence in the work place compared to that of 1950s or early 1960s, women are extremely successful at mastering life. As a matter of fact, when women put their minds to a social task, the society needs to pay attention because a paradigm is about to change.

Kate Spade will be missed and that is not fair. Women need to address depression, the need for excellent psychiatric or psychological care with a possible need for medication. And make the entire idea social. Bring it up among friends and family and let the world know how great she feels while taking Celexa or Amitriptyline. There is NO EXCUSE, when girlfriends get together it needs to include the last happenings in mental health and the treatment for it. It may just open a window that is shut to sharing and that is definitely not fair.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain and it is treatable. It is not some kind of side effect because she hates her boyfriend or has a really disappointing job. Depression is an illness or which there is very successful treatment, including, regular visits to a qualified doctor or councilor. And there is no excuse for the idea "it is too expensive." It doesn't have to be.

Mental health has to come out of the HMO paradigm and enter the COMMUNITY  paradigm. There are community clinics all across the country with highly skilled and dedicated professionals. They love people, their problems and the solutions for them. Most community mental health clinics work on a sliding scale depending on income. This is important and a woman can seek help because she believes she needs it, NOT because they have a stamp of approval by some idiot insurance assessor.

Go, and don't think twice. Find your Shrink, sit on the couch and complain about how miserable life can be to satisfaction. The outcome is a woman that better understands herself and her world. It is amazing what happens when ideas from deep within the heart take flight in words. Please, don't let us down.

And. Talk to men about it, too.

June 5, 2018
By Vanessa Friedman

There is a lot of talk (click here) these days about the lack of women at the top of fashion brands — the statistics are terrible, the gender imbalance striking. It is one of the reasons Kate Spade, the designer who was found dead in her home on Tuesday morning, was so important to so many of us.

She represented not just a terrific talent who built an idea about handbags into what became a billion dollar brand, but a critical figure in the continuum of women who have defined fashion in the United States: designers who thought about what other women (like her) would want in their closets (and later, their homes) and who solved that problem without elitism.

That’s why, in so many profiles over the years, Ms. Spade — or her brand, which she personified — was put in the same cultural bucket as everyone from Dorothy Parker and Nora Ephron to the fictional heroines Nora Charles and Holly Golightly. I always thought of her a bit as Mary Richards throwing her hat up in the air with joy at taking on the big city at the start of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” not because they had the same style, but because they seemed to have the same approach....