This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
(I receive no compensation from any entry on this blog.)
26 April 2018 US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron walk to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Wednesday. Among the memorable (click here) images captured during French President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to Washington is a series showing US President Donald Trump leading Macron along the White House colonnade, their hands clasped. In France, the photographs were hardly seen as the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Those who oppose Macron's efforts to engage with Trump saw a child following his father on the first day of school. Perhaps predictably, the most outspoken critiques came from the political fringes. "The new world: Atlantic version," France's Communist Party tweeted. "Following, illustrated in an image," wrote Florian Philippot, a prominent member of France's far-right. But disdain for Trump is not a fringe phenomenon in France, where opinion polls consistently show that the US President is deeply unpopular - much more so than Russia's Vladimir Putin, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and China's Xi Jinping.... There may be a reason Trump is so enamored with France's Macron. Immigration. France has passed a bill that would take far more drastic measures to control immigration. ...Some in France have also started using the evidence of the increasingly tactile relationship between Macron and Trump to point out what they consider to be uncomfortable similarities between the two presidents, especially on immigration. On Tuesday, the same day Macron arrived in Washington, France's National Assembly passed his hotly contested migration bill, which would, among other things, allow authorities to imprison illegal immigrants for one year and double the amount of time during which asylum seekers could be detained by police, from 45 days to 90. In the aftermath of the vote, one parliamentary deputy from Macron's party went so far as to announce he would be leaving the President's centrist faction. Macron's immigration policy had already alienated some of his supporters in recent months.... France's immigration experience is different than the USA's. November of 2015 found 130 dead and even more wounded when militants opened fire on a nightclub. Among the terrorists was a recent migrant from the Greek islands that was accepting refugees from Syria. To some extent, the young men claiming to be migrants from the Syrian civil war were actually terrorists to bring about the destruction of the civilized world. The attacks in Paris (click here) on the night of Friday 13 November by gunmen and suicide bombers hit a concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars, almost simultaneously - and left 130 people dead and hundreds wounded. But, for some reason, Trump seems more interested in the French President than he is any other European leader. The only common ground I could come up with is France's new immigration legislation which is supposed to be President's Macron new focus. The experience of the USA with illegal immigrants is very different and there is no reason for the USA to require that level of control. Europe is different and the experience it had with Greece and Turkey in regard to Syria's refugees is worrisome.
April 25, 2018 By Emma Brown and Rosalind S. Helderman Michael Cohen, (click here) the longtime attorney of President Trump, told a federal judge on Wednesday that he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself in a lawsuit brought by adult entertainer Stormy Daniels. Cohen’s declaration, in support of his request to pause proceedings in the civil case, cited an “ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.... Michael Cohen should consider going back to his old practice at Phillips-Nizer. Then again, it might not bring the change in ethical standards Mr. Cohen needs in his life. November 13, 2015 By Lauran Elkies Schram For the next two years, (click here) Phillips Nizer will remain in its 49,846 square feet at Vornado Realty Trustand Kushner Companies’ 666 Fifth Avenue, Commercial Observer has learned. The asking rent for the two-year renewal was in the mid-$60s per square foot, a source with knowledge of the deal said. The tenant has occupied the entire 28th and 29th floors for over 15 years...
The Supreme Court has already ruled that any state has to provide access to abortion. All this is about political jockeying and using taxpayer monies to further their ambition. It is a sickness in the GOP that sees the USA as a democracy they can turn into a theocracy. It is very sad. FOX News and Talk Radio can't exist without this level of extremism. It is directly connected to Republican rhetoric. "If only we had all the votes we needed the USA would be ours to have." "W"rong! March 25, 2018 While Donald Trump (click here) once said he was “very pro-choice,” since the start of his presidential campaign his stance on abortion has been consistent: It should be banned, no matter the consequences to women. At times, he has even veered to the right of the mainstream anti-abortion movement, as when he said during a primary season town hall event that women who seek abortions should face “some form of punishment.” Most anti-abortion politicians profess to want to protect women, even when they pass laws that harm them. Now legislators in one state want Mr. Trump’s cruel vision to become reality. Ohio lawmakers have proposed legislation to ban all abortions, period, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest or to save a woman’s life. Carrying to term a pregnancy against one’s will is punishment enough — in fact, it can amount to torture, according to the United Nations Human Rights Council. But the Ohio bill would not only cut off access to the procedure, it would also open the door to criminal charges against both abortion providers and women seeking the procedure.
By Carolyn McAfee Cerbin A third federal judge (click here) Tuesday rejected the Trump administration's reasoning for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In a scathing 60-page ruling, Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that administration moves to cancel DACA were "arbitrary" and "capricious" because DHS "failed adequately to explain its conclusion the program was unlawful." The court gave the Trump administration 90 days to challenge the ruling before reinstating DACA in its entirety....
