Alison Bard, Alison Bard Society, Alison Bard Fan Club.
Alison Bard is the brilliant sister of world famous writers Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography interviewed Alison Bard Burnett.
Don't miss these very witty interviews with born humorist Alison Bard Burnett who shares her golden laughter with Betty MacDonald Fans from all over the world.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Alison Bard Burnett, Betty MacDonald, Ma and Pa Kettle biography, favourite recipes and unsecured phone lines
Hello 'Pussy', this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. You took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consulting the State Department. NOOOOOOOO!
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 ' )
Betty MacDonald's sister Alison Bard Burnett
Betty MacDonald's mother Sydney with grandchild Alison Beck
When Betty
MacDonald's sister Alison Bard Burnett talkes about her experiences with
the Kettles even my mother-in-law is laughing. This is very surprising
because she laughs very seldom. We don't have neighbours like the Kettles. Our neighbours are like Mr. and Mrs. Hicks. They
have no children. We have a boy and two girls. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks are
cutting down everything in the garden. Ours looks like a paradise or a
green hell with many trees and branches. Mr. Hicks always says to us:
If you need help I'll cut everything down for you but we refuse so far.
We have two dogs. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks don't like dogs or cats because
Mrs. Hicks is very allergic. By the way we won't ever have any chickens
although is seems that our children bring a new pet home every day. I
know what they are talking about when they say: Mother, we have a
surprise! You won't believe it! ( I do! )
Mrs. Hicks is cleaning
the house night and day and is called ' our newspaper' because she
knows everything about the people in our community. You know I
thought it was a very witty idea to lend our Mrs. Hicks Betty
MacDonald's The Egg and I which she wasn't aware of. After she read
Betty MacDonald's book she said smiling: It was very funny but I dislike
this awful Mrs. Hicks. She obviously doesn't understand the meaning of
life. I couldn't say anything and looked at her with an open mouth. Mrs.
Hicks gave me a strange look and said: Darling, is everything ok with
you? You look terrible this morning!
I want to share a very
special Betty MacDonald family story. My grandmother wrote letters to
Betty MacDonald, Mary and Sydney Bard because she loved Betty
MacDonald's and Mary Bard's books. She was very fond after she got
delightful letters written by Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard and even from
mother Sydney Bard. I'll write a Betty MacDonald Fan Club Article about
it.
My girls and I like like Betty MacDonald's Nancy and Plum,
The Egg and I, Anybody can do anything and Onions in the Stew. My hubby
as he has the same profession as Mary Bard's husband Dr. Clyde Jensen
prefers Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I and Mary Bard's The doctor
wears three faces. Our boy likes the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Stories. He
always says: I don't behave like the boys and girls in the books and
don't need a Piggle-Wiggle cure. I'm not sure. Not at all!
We
can't wait to read Gwen Grant's books. We are very fond of Monica Sone's
Nisei Daughter. Monica Sone, who is Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The
Plague and I, is our favourite person in Betty MacDonald's books.
We
would like to visit the state of Washington, Seattle, Laurelhurst and
Vashon Island and attend one of Darsie Beck's workshops.
Congratulations!
Betty MacDonald Fan Club has the most interesting and fascinating Betty
MacDonald Honour members.
Betty MacDonald cook fan club project is really a fascinating one.
Betty MacDonald fan club letter collection includes several letters of Betty MacDonald.
Betty MacDonald explained in detail the questions regarding Gammy's cooking.
I can imagine very well how Betty, Mary and her siblings felt because I had a grandmother like this.
She was the most wonderful and charming person on earth but her cooking was dreadful.
We children were very much afraid of it like Betty MacDonald and her family.
It would be very nice if Mr. Tigerli and Letizia Mancino could share some of their favourite recipes.
We are very curious.
Thanks a million in advance!
We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State. Betty MacDonald fan club newsletter November will be very interesting
because we'll share new outstanding Betty MacDonald fan club research
results.
My favourite city is Seattle. If you have any info regarding Betty MacDonald's favourite recipes, let us know, please. Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen wanted to publish a cookbook. Do you know the title? If so send a mail please and maybe you'll be the winner of several new Betty MacDonald fan club items.
Lisa and Betty MacDonald fan club cooking research team are working on a new item 'Betty MacDonald and her favourite recipes'.
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.
The very witty Betty MacDonald satire by Wolfgang Hampel Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say is outstanding. And I totally agree with Betty MacDonald in this satire which isn't a satire at all as you can read below.
'Pussy' took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consulting the State Department.
He spent the 2016 campaign savaging Hillary Clinton for her reckless
violation of the State Department’s protocols for transmitting
information.
He has spent the past week taking calls from foreign
leaders — on the unprotected phone lines of his Tower — without first soliciting pertinent briefings, in defiance of longstanding practice. Referred to his White House transition as though it were the next season of The Apprentice.
Don't miss this article below, please.
His behaviour is a joke - but a very bad one!
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 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 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.
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.
Wise guy, North Pole, Svalbard And Jan Mayen, 9 minutes ago
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?
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.
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.
Thank you so much for sending us your favourite Betty MacDonald quote.
More info are coming soon.
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.
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.
It’s
been ten days since Donald Trump won the White House. But for the
demagogue’s detractors, it’s felt like centuries — long medieval
centuries, chock-full of plague, illiteracy, and barbarians running
roughshod through the ruins of the old republic.
But
we’re not actually living in the dark ages (yet). So we might as well
shed some light on what the barbarians have already wrought.
At
Daily Intelligencer, we’ll be taking a weekly inventory of all of
Donald Trump’s most jaw-dropping, stomach-churning, spine-tingling
affronts to liberal democracy. Here’s a quick rundown of everything the
president-elect has already accomplished.
Derided protestors as paid professionals whose acts of free speech are fundamentally “unfair.”
American presidents generally try not to discredit their detractors via patently false right-wing conspiracy theories
— a point that someone on Trump’s staff apparently relayed to him, as
the president-elect’s Twitter account declared its “love” of the
protestors’ “passion” nine hours later.
Invited the manager of his “blind trust” to a meeting with the prime minister of Japan.
Even before his election, Trump had already made a mockery of good government norms, by refusing to extricate himself from the myriad conflicts of interest
his company presents. Instead, the president-elect promised to place
his assets into what he refers to as a “blind trust,” but is actually an
entity that would allow him perfect knowledge of the assets he holds —
and that would be managed by his children, who are also members of his
transition team.
This week, Trump revealed that those children will also, apparently, take part in diplomatic meetings with the leaders of foreign countries.
Assembled a team of racists to lead his White House.
First, Trump tapped the allegedly anti-Semitic mastermind of an “alt-right” website as his chief White House strategist. Then, the president-elect tapped a retired general who believes that “fear of Muslims is rational” as his national security adviser. Finally, he named a man that a Republican Senate deemed too racist to serve
as a federal judge in 1986 — one who thinks the Voting Rights Act is
“intrusive,” and (allegedly) told an African-American federal prosecutor
that he should “be careful what you say around white folks” — as the
head of the Justice Department.
Took
credit for the fact that Ford will not be relocating a plant to Mexico
(which they never had any intention of relocating to Mexico).
In
truth, Ford opted to keep the Lincoln SUV production line in Kentucky,
after considering moving it to Mexico — but in either event, the plant
would have remained open, and no jobs would have been lost. But fake news outlets — and some not-so-rigorous “real” ones — celebrated Trump’s “victory,” anyway.
Declared America’s leading newspaper a “failing” institution.
Trump
has made a years-long habit of denigrating any media institution that
accurately reports information he doesn’t like. But the stakes of this
behavior are drastically higher now that he leads the world’s most
powerful country.
Abandoned his press pool.
Presidents-elect
typically feel compelled to allow a pool of reporters to travel with
them to public events, as a gesture to the public’s right to have a
watchful eye on its leader. Trump feels no such compulsion.
Floated
the idea of hiring his son-in-law to a White House position, in
possible defiance of laws against nepotism and norms against conflicts
of interest.
Public officials are barred from hiring family members
to agencies that they have authority over. They also, generally, avoid
hiring the significant others of the heads of their blind trusts.
Took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consulting the State Department.
Trump
spent the 2016 campaign savaging Hillary Clinton for her reckless
violation of the State Department’s protocols for transmitting
information. He has spent the past week taking calls from foreign
leaders — on the unprotected phone lines of Trump Tower — without first soliciting pertinent briefings, in defiance of longstanding practice. Referred to his White House transition as though it were the next season of The Apprentice.
THE BLOG
History Tells Us What Will Happen Next With Brexit And Trump
Note: this essay contains a lot of links out, which are underlined. Consider them further reading or me backing up my opinions.
It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals.
My background is archaeology, so also history and anthropology. It
leads me to look at big historical patterns. My theory is that most
peoples’ perspective of history is limited to the experience
communicated by their parents and grandparents, so 50-100 years. To go
beyond that you have to read, study and learn to untangle the propaganda
that is inevitable in all telling of history. In a nutshell, at
university I would fail a paper if I didn’t compare at least two, if not
three opposing views on a topic. Taking one telling of events as gospel
doesn’t wash in the comparative analytical method of research that
forms the core of British academia. (I can’t speak for other systems,
but they’re definitely not all alike in this way.)
So zooming out,
we humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction,
generally self-imposed to some extent or another. This handy list
shows all the wars over time. Wars are actually the norm for humans,
but every now and then something big comes along. I am interested in the
Black Death, which devastated Europe. The opening of Boccaccio’s
Decameron describes Florence in
the grips of the Plague. It is as beyond imagination as the Somme,
Hiroshima or the Holocaust. I mean, you quite literally can’t put
yourself there and imagine what it was like. For those in the midst of
the Plague, it must have felt like the end of the world.
[Trump is] a charismatic narcissist who feeds on the crowd to become ever stronger, creating a cult around himself.
But a defining
feature of humans is their resilience. To us now, it seems obvious that
we survived the Plague, but to people at the time it must have seemed
incredible that their society continued afterwards. Indeed, many takes
on the effects of the Black Death are that it had a positive impact in the long term. Well summed up here:
By targeting
frail people of all ages, and killing them by the hundreds of thousands
within an extremely short period of time, the Black Death might have
represented a strong force of natural selection and removed the weakest
individuals on a very broad scale within Europe,” ...In addition, the
Black Death significantly changed the social structure of some European
regions. Tragic depopulation created the shortage of working people.
This shortage caused wages to rise. Products prices fell too.
Consequently, standards of living increased. For instance, people
started to consume more food of higher quality.
But for the
people living through it, as with the World Wars, Soviet Famines,
Holocaust, it must have felt inconceivable that humans could rise up
from it. The collapse of the Roman Empire, Black Death, Spanish
Inquisition, Thirty Years War, War of the Roses, English Civil War...
it’s a long list. Events of massive destruction from which humanity
recovered and move on, often in better shape.
At a local
level in time, people think things are fine — then things rapidly spiral
out of control until they become unstoppable, and we wreak massive
destruction on ourselves. For the people living in the midst of this, it
is hard to see happening and hard to understand. To historians later,
it all makes sense and we see clearly how one thing led to another.
During the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme I was struck that it was a direct outcome of the assassination of an Austrian Arch Duke in Bosnia.
I very much doubt anyone at the time thought the killing of a minor
European royal would lead to the death of 17 million people.
My point is
that this is a cycle. It happens again and again, but as most people
only have a 50-100 year historical perspective they don’t see that it’s
happening again. As the events that led to the First World War unfolded,
there were a few brilliant minds who started to warn that something big
was wrong, that the web of treaties across Europe could lead to a war,
but they were dismissed as hysterical, mad, or fools, as is always the
way, and as people who worry about Putin, Brexit and Trump are dismissed
now.
A little thing leads to an unstoppable destruction that could have been prevented if you’d listened and thought a bit.
Then after the
War to end all Wars, we went and had another one. Again, for a historian
it was quite predictable. Lead people to feel they have lost control of
their country and destiny, people look for scapegoats, a charismatic
leader captures the popular mood, and singles out that scapegoat. He
talks in rhetoric that has no detail, and drums up anger and hatred.
Soon the masses start to move as one, without any logic driving their
actions, and the whole becomes unstoppable.
That was
Hitler, but it was also Mussolini, Stalin, Putin, Mugabe and so many
more. Mugabe is a very good case in point. He whipped up national anger
and hatred towards the land owning white minority (who happened to know
how to run farms), and seized their land to redistribute to the people,
in a great populist move which in the end unravelled the economy and
farming industry and left the people in possession of land, but
starving. See also the famines created by the Soviet Union, and the one caused by the Chinese Communists
last century in which 20-40 million people died. It seems inconceivable
that people could create a situation in which tens of millions of
people die without reason, but we do it again and again.
But at the time
people don’t realize they’re embarking on a route that will lead to a
destruction period. They think they’re right, they’re cheered on by
jeering angry mobs, their critics are mocked. This cycle, the one we saw
for example from the Treaty of Versaille, to the rise of Hitler, to the
Second World War, appears to be happening again. But as with before,
most people cannot see it because:
1. They are only looking at the present, not the past or future
2. They are only looking immediately around them, not at how events connect globally
3. Most people don’t read, think, challenge or hear opposing views
Trump is doing this in America. Those of us with some oversight from history can see it happening. Read this brilliant, long essay in the New York magazine
to understand how Plato described all this, and it is happening just as
he predicted. Trump says he will Make America Great Again, when in fact
America is currently great, according to pretty well any statistics. He
is using passion, anger and rhetoric in the same way all his
predecessors did — a charismatic narcissist who feeds on the crowd to
become ever stronger, creating a cult around himself. You can blame
society, politicians, the media, for America getting to the point that
it’s ready for Trump, but the bigger historical picture is that history
generally plays out the same way each time someone like him becomes the
boss.
On a wider
stage, zoom out some more, Russia is a dictatorship with a charismatic
leader using fear and passion to establish a cult around himself. Turkey
is now there too. Hungary, Poland, Slovakia are heading that way, and
across Europe more Trumps and Putins are waiting in the wings, in fact funded by Putin, waiting for the popular tide to turn their way.
We should be
asking ourselves what our Archduke Ferdinand moment will be. How will an
apparently small event trigger another period of massive destruction.
We see Brexit, Trump, Putin in isolation. The world does not work that
way — all things are connected and affecting each other. I have
pro-Brexit friends who say, “Oh, you’re going to blame that on
Brexit too??” But they don’t realize that actually, yes, historians will
trace neat lines from apparently unrelated events back to major
political and social shifts like Brexit.
We are entering a bad phase. It will be unpleasant
for those living through it, maybe even will unravel into being hellish
and beyond imagination.
Brexit — a
group of angry people winning a fight — easily inspires other groups of
angry people to start a similar fight, empowered with the idea that they
may win. That alone can trigger chain reactions. A nuclear explosion is
not caused by one atom splitting, but by the impact of the first atom
that splits causing multiple other atoms near it to split, and they in
turn causing multiple atoms to split. The exponential increase in atoms
splitting, and their combined energy is the bomb. That is how World War
One started and, ironically how World War Two ended.
An example of how Brexit could lead to a nuclear war could be this:
Brexit in the
UK causes Italy or France to have a similar referendum. Le Pen wins an
election in France. Europe now has a fractured EU. The EU, for all its
many awful faults, has prevented a war in Europe for longer than ever
before. The EU is also a major force in suppressing Putin’s military
ambitions. European sanctions on Russia really hit the economy, and
helped temper Russia’s attacks on Ukraine (there is a reason bad guys
always want a weaker European Union). Trump wins in the US. Trump
becomes isolationist, which weakens NATO. He has already said he would not automatically honor NATO commitments in the face of a Russian attack on the Baltics.
With a
fractured EU, and weakened NATO, Putin, facing an ongoing economic and
social crisis in Russia, needs another foreign distraction around which
to rally his people. He funds far right anti-EU activists in Latvia, who
then create a reason for an uprising of the Russian Latvians in the
East of the country (the EU border with Russia). Russia sends “peace
keeping forces” and “aid lorries” into Latvia, as it did in Georgia, and
in Ukraine. He cedes Eastern Latvia as he did Eastern Ukraine (Crimea
has the same population as Latvia, by the way).
A divided
Europe, with the leaders of France, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and
others now pro-Russia, anti-EU, and funded by Putin, overrule calls for
sanctions or a military response. NATO is slow to respond: Trump does not want America to be involved,
and a large part of Europe is indifferent or blocking any action.
Russia, seeing no real resistance to their actions, move further into
Latvia, and then into Eastern Estonia and Lithuania. The Baltic States
declare war on Russia and start to retaliate, as they have now been
invaded so have no choice. Half of Europe sides with them, a few
countries remain neutral, and a few side with Russia. Where does Turkey
stand on this? How does ISIS respond to a new war in Europe? Who uses a
nuclear weapon first?
This is just
one Arch Duke Ferdinand scenario. The number of possible scenarios are
infinite due to the massive complexity of the many moving parts. And of
course many of them lead to nothing happening. But based on history we
are due another period of destruction, and based on history all the
indicators are that we are entering one.
It will come in
ways we can’t see coming, and will spin out of control so fast people
won’t be able to stop it. Historians will look back and make sense of it
all and wonder how we could all have been so naïve. How could I sit in a
nice café in London, writing this, without wanting to run away. How
could people read it and make sarcastic and dismissive comments about
how pro-Remain people should stop whining, and how we shouldn’t blame
everything on Brexit. Others will read this and sneer at me for saying
America is in great shape, that Trump is a possible future Hitler (and
yes, Godwin’s Law.
But my comparison is to another narcissistic, charismatic leader
fanning flames of hatred until things spiral out of control). It’s easy
to jump to conclusions that oppose pessimistic predictions based on the
weight of history and learning. Trump won against the other Republicans
in debates by countering their claims by calling them names and
dismissing them. It’s an easy route but the wrong one.
Ignoring and
mocking the experts, as people are doing around Brexit and Trump’s
campaign, is no different to ignoring a doctor who tells you to stop
smoking, and then finding later you’ve developed incurable cancer. A
little thing leads to an unstoppable destruction that could have been
prevented if you’d listened and thought a bit. But people smoke, and
people die from it. That is the way of the human.
We need to find a way to bridge from our closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening social divides.
So I feel it’s
all inevitable. I don’t know what it will be, but we are entering a bad
phase. It will be unpleasant for those living through it, maybe even
will unravel into being hellish and beyond imagination. Humans will come
out the other side, recover and move on. The human race will be fine,
changed, maybe better. But for those at the sharp end — for the
thousands of Turkish teachers who just got fired, for the Turkish
journalists and lawyers in prison, for the Russian dissidents in gulags,
for people lying wounded in French hospitals after terrorist attacks,
for those yet to fall, this will be their Somme.
What can we do? Well, again, looking back, probably not much. The liberal intellectuals are always in the minority. See Clay Shirky’s Twitter Storm
on this point. The people who see that open societies, being nice to
other people, not being racist, not fighting wars, is a better way to
live, they generally end up losing these fights. They don’t fight dirty.
They are terrible at appealing to the populace. They are less violent,
so end up in prisons, camps, and graves. We need to beware not to become
divided (see: Labour party), we need to avoid getting lost in arguing
through facts and logic, and counter the populist messages of passion
and anger with our own similar messages. We need to understand and use
social media.
We need to harness a different fear. Fear of another World War nearly stopped World War 2, but didn’t. We need to avoid our own echo chambers.
Trump and Putin supporters don’t read the Guardian, so writing there is
just reassuring our friends. We need to find a way to bridge from our
closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening
social divides.
(Perhaps I’m just writing this so I can be remembered by history as one of the people who saw it coming.)
____________________
A version of this post originally appeared on Medium.
I have replied to some of the comments on this essay here.
Reminder: Your future Vice President claims cigarettes don't cause cancer
Throughout
his political career, Indiana governor and GOP Vice Presidential
Nominee Mike Pence has received more than $100,000 donations from he…
Throughout his political career, Indiana governor and GOP Vice President-Elect Mike Pence
has received more than $100,000 in donations from the tobacco industry.
In return, he disseminated the false claim that cigarette smoke isn’t
as dangerous as people think. “Time for a quick reality check,” Pence wrote in an from 2001. “Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.”In the op-ed, Pence admitted that smoking isn’t exactly “good for
you,” but claimed that two-thirds of smokers do not die from smoking
related illness and “9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer.” Pence framed the perceived dangers of smoking as just another propaganda
ploy from the government to encroach on the rights of citizens to live
how they pleased.
In a political debate when Pence was running for an open U.S. House
seat, he was pressed hard by his Democratic opponent on his past
comments. According to the Indianapolis Star, “Pence clarified that he wrote that there was no causal link medically identifying smoking as causing lung cancer.” According to ThinkProgress, Pence was one of 97 people in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted against the bipartisan Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,
“which gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate
cigarettes and blasted a 2009 bill to expand healthcare for kids as ‘a
tax increase on smokers to pay for a new middle-class entitlement.’”
Three years later, Pence ran for governor, again with significant tobacco industry support.
Altria/Phillip Morris, Lorillard, and R.J. Reynolds/Reynolds American
have combined to contribute at least $63,500 to his 2012 and 2016
campaigns, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Pence’s own state has paid a high price for its governor’s
contribution to the spread of cigarette trutherism. Indiana has the
highest smoking rate in the industrial Midwest region and is seventh
when it comes to the most smokers in the U.S. As the state with the
lowest tobacco taxes in the nation, the public health hazard doesn’t
seem to be going away anytime soon.
…a 2014 article noted that 17 percent of pregnant women
smoke — nearly double the national average — and this has been linked to
lower birth weights and higher rates of infant mortality. As a result,
it noted, “the state spends $28 million a year on health costs for
infants born to mothers who smoke.”
Compounding the problem, Pence rejected an effort to fund transportation by raising the cigarette tax in his state by 5 cents. “I’m very confident that we can meet the needs that Indiana has over
the next four years to improve our roads and bridges without raising
taxes,” he said. Smoke up, Indiana. [This post has been updated] Featured image: Gage Skidmore (Flickr)
High in Tower, Trump Reads, Tweets and Plans
President-elect Donald J.
Trump, speaking in Raleigh, N.C., the day before the election. “The
presidency may change him eventually, but it’s not going to change him
initially,” a Republican strategist said.Credit
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Donald J. Trump
sits high in Trump Tower in New York, spending hours on the phone with
friends, television personalities and donors to ask if they know people
to recommend for his cabinet.
He
joins a daily morning transition meeting with his family and staff, but
still maintains the routine that sustained him during the campaign:
starting his day at 5 a.m. reading The New York Post and The New York Times, then switching on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” whose co-host Joe Scarborough he once publicly savaged but now often seeks out for advice.
He
gets angry when members of his inner circle get too much of the
spotlight, as Rudolph W. Giuliani did when headlines about his millions of dollars in speaking fees appeared as the former New York mayor was publicly promoting himself to be Mr. Trump’s secretary of state.
And Mr. Trump has happily resumed control of his Twitter feed,
using it to bash targets in the news media and criticize the cast of
the Broadway musical “Hamilton” for imploring Vice President-elect Mike
Pence, who was in the audience Friday night, to govern on behalf of all Americans.
As
a parade of job seekers, TV talking heads and statesmen like Henry
Kissinger paraded through the lobby of Trump Tower this past week, Mr.
Trump ran his presidential transition from his triplex on the 58th floor
much the way he ran his campaign and his business before that —
schmoozing, rewarding loyalty, fomenting infighting among advisers and
moving confidently forward through a series of fits and starts.
President Obama, who met with Mr. Trump
two days after the election, has held out hope that the gravity of the
presidency will change the former reality show star. But people close to
the 70-year-old president-elect say that he has such long-held habits
formed by fame, wealth and the freedom to have done whatever he wanted
that they remain skeptical, at least for now, that he will transform to
fit the constraints of the White House.
Thus far, President-elect Donald J. Trump has been most comfortable preparing for office from Trump Tower in New York.Credit
Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
“The
presidency may change him eventually, but it’s not going to change him
initially,” said Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser to the Trump
campaign and a Republican strategist. “He’s a man who likes a lot of
input from a lot of people, and he’s someone who has an incredible
instinct for the American people.”
People close to Mr. Trump nonetheless say he is more focused now than he was in the first few days after his surprise victory.
He was nervous and jolted, they said, by the 90-minute Oval Office
meeting with Mr. Obama, and for the first time appeared to take in the
enormousness of the job.
He
is proud, they say, that he has so rapidly named people for his cabinet
and senior staff, including a group of hawks and hard-line loyalists: Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general, Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas as director of the C.I.A., and Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, as chief strategist.
“Ahead
of schedule, under budget, high energy, trust and loyalty — there’s
just a pattern to the whole thing,” said Richard F. Hohlt, a longtime
Republican consultant in Washington. “That’s his mark of success.”
Loyalty, however, goes only so far.
There were initial reports from senior officials within Mr. Trump’s orbit that Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporter
in the campaign’s final weeks, was the leading candidate for secretary
of state. But the headlines about Mr. Giuliani’s business interests
bothered Mr. Trump, who was urged by several business leaders and some
media hosts to reconsider the option. Suddenly, he arranged a Saturday
meeting with one of his fiercest critics, Mitt Romney, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
Transition
officials say the meeting with Mr. Romney, a moderate Republican who
was the party’s nominee for president in 2012, may not have been simply
for show. They say that Mr. Trump believes that Mr. Romney, with his
patrician bearing, looks the part of a top diplomat right out of
“central casting” — the same phrase Mr. Trump used to describe Mike
Pence before choosing him as his running mate.
Yet
Mr. Trump loves the tension and drama of a selection process, and has
sought to stoke it. A senior adviser described the meeting, in part, as
Mr. Romney simply coming to pay his respects to the president-elect and
“kiss his ring.”
Mr. Trump, who has been known to act precipitously against people who have not pleased him, did so again this past week when he removed Gov. Chris Christie
of New Jersey, another longtime loyalist, as the head of his
transition. People close to Mr. Trump say that, among other concerns, he
determined that Mr. Christie had to go after two former top aides were convicted by a federal jury on all charges stemming from a 2013 scheme to close access lanes
at the George Washington Bridge to punish a New Jersey mayor who
declined to endorse Mr. Christie for re-election. And Mr. Trump was
angered when Mr. Christie did not defend him after 11-year-old audio
emerged of the candidate boasting about committing sexual assaults.
Mr.
Trump also likes to surprise, and enjoys the worldwide speculation he
sets off with his Twitter posts. And after he became upset by Mr.
Giuliani’s headlines, his aides leaked the news that he was considering Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina for secretary of state — speculation that has since faded as Mr. Romney’s prospects have risen.
Showmanship remains central to Mr. Trump, who on Thursday held his first meeting as president-elect with a foreign leader,
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. The setting was Mr. Trump’s marble
and gold, Louis XIV-style residence on the 58th floor, with sweeping
views of New York and Central Park. Mr. Trump, with General Flynn at his
side, sat next to Mr. Abe under an enormous crystal chandelier as Mr.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka, looked on.
The
formality of the setting contrasted with the freewheeling style that
Mr. Trump adopts in his cluttered corner office on the 26th floor, where
aides, his children and his longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, move
busily in and out as he holds court behind his desk. Mr. Trump, who does
not use a computer or read online, does keep an eye on the television,
particularly the now-constant news about himself. Most information he
takes in is in person or on the phone.
He
is worried, his aides say, that he will not be able to keep his Android
phone once he gets to the White House and wonders aloud how isolated he
will become — and whether he will be able to keep in touch with his
friends — without it as president. He continues to discuss with the
Secret Service how much he can return on weekends to Trump Tower, and
still expects to use the Bedminister golf club and his private
Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., as vacation retreats.
The
Trump International Hotel in Washington, just five blocks from the
White House, could also take on an outsize role in the Trump
administration. His children may stay there when they come to the
nation’s capital, and there is chatter that it may supplant Blair House,
which traditionally hosts foreign dignitaries visiting the president.
But for now, Mr. Trump seems most comfortable running the show from Trump Tower.
“I’ve
witnessed him as a businessman sitting at the desk; I’ve witnessed him
as a potential candidate sitting at the desk; I’ve witnessed him as a
candidate sitting at the desk; and I’ve now witnessed him as the
president-elect sitting at the desk,” said Kellyanne Conway, a senior
adviser.
“It’s a comfortable environment,” she added, “but now the stakes are higher.”
Eric Lipton and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting.
Hillary Clinton’s Popular-Vote Victory Is Unprecedented—and Still Growing
Her margin is now bigger than the winning margins for John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.
Hillary Clinton now leads
the national popular vote for president by roughly one million votes,
and her victory margin is expanding rapidly. That margin could easily
double before the end of an arduous process of counting ballots,
reviewing results, and reconciling numbers for an official total. But one thing is certain: Clinton’s win is unprecedented in
the modern history of American presidential politics. And the numbers
should focus attention on the democratic dysfunction that has been
exposed.
When a candidate who wins the popular vote does not take
office, when a loser is instead installed in the White House, that is
an issue. And it raises questions that must be addressed.
So let’s address them:
WHO WON THE NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE? AND BY HOW MUCH?
Clinton is winning it. The only question now has to do with the size of the win. You will see different numbers
in different counts because keeping on top of the national totals
requires constant monitoring of the results from 50 states and the
District of Columbia. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report maintains
one of the most frequently updated spreadsheets
on the race. One week after the election, it had Clinton with
62,403,269 votes to 61,242,652 for Trump. That puts Clinton ahead by
1.16 million votes. Another able chronicler of the count, Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, also puts Clinton ahead by more than one million votes.
The million-vote figure is a baseline from which to
analyze Clinton’s popular-vote victory. But it is only that—a
baseline—as her margin will continue to expand.
HOW COME NO ONE IS GOING OVER 50 PERCENT?
The previous three US presidential elections saw the winning
candidates win actual majorities of the popular vote. But that won’t
happen this time. As in 18 previous presidential elections, the winner
of the popular vote in this year’s election will achieve only a
plurality of the votes.
More than a million votes have already been counted for
Libertarian Gary Johnson, Green Jill Stein, independent Evan McMullin
and others, according to various counts.
The totals for third-party, independent, and write-in candidates will
rise as the tabulation continues—providing a powerful indication of the
desire for a broader democracy and political alternatives. The high
level of support for third-party and independent candidates also
guarantees that neither major-party candidate will do this year what
Barack Obama did in 2008 and 2012: win a majority of the popular vote.
WHY AREN’T ALL THE VOTES COUNTED A WEEK AFTER THE ELECTION?
The United States has no clear and consistent national
standard for holding elections or for counting votes. The rules differ
radically from state to state. In some states, election officials are
already engaged on the process of establishing a final official count.
In other states, ballots are still being counted. The big distinction is
between states that do most of their voting on Election Day and states
that rely heavily on “absentee” ballots and mail voting. It happens that
many of the bigger states that make it easier to vote (at the polls and
by mail) are states that favored Clinton.
The biggest of these is California,
where Clinton is ahead 62-33 percent at this point. California election
officials explain: “It typically takes weeks for counties to process
and count all of the ballots. Elections officials have approximately one
month (28 days for presidential electors and 30 days for all other
contests) to complete their extensive tallying, auditing, and
certification work (known as the ‘official canvass’) Most notably,
voting by mail has increased significantly in recent years and many
vote-by-mail ballots arrive on, or up to three days after, Election Day
(vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day and received
by the county elections official no later than three days after the
election are included in the canvass). In processing vote-by-mail
ballots, elections officials must confirm each voter’s registration
status, verify each voter’s signature on the vote-by-mail envelope, and
ensure each person did not vote elsewhere in the same election before
the ballot can be counted. Other ballots that are processed after
Election Day include provisional ballots (processed similar to
vote-by-mail ballots), and ballots that are damaged or cannot be
machine-read and must be remade by elections officials.”
As on November 11, according to the state’s updated “Estimated Unprocessed Ballots” report,
more than one million ballots were as yet uncounted in Los Angeles
County. Two days later, San Diego County reported that it has more than
600,000 ballots to count.
BUT THE HEADLINES JUST TALK ABOUT DONALD TRUMP WINNING?
Elite media outlets do not, for the most part, have an
interest in vote counts and what they mean. Coverage of the 2016
election campaign confirmed the extent to which major media are more
interested in personalities than facts on the ground. The television
networks like to declare a “winner” and then get focused on the palace
intrigues surrounding a transition of power. Those intrigues are worth
covering. But perspective on the will of the people get lost.
Election-night numbers get locked in, and that’s that. There may be a
notation that Clinton won “a narrow popular-vote” margin, but rarely is
there a deep dive—even as the “narrow” margin grows to something much
more substantial.
It was announced on election night that the Republican
nominee had secured a sufficient number of Electoral College votes to
claim the presidency. With the counts continuing, and with recounts a
possibility, the Electoral College totals as of one week after the
election project that Trump will win 306 electoral votes, as opposed to
232 for Clinton. The Trump figure is 36 more than is needed to reach the
270 total that is required to claim the presidency. Trump will almost
certainly stay above the 270 threshold, although he could still lose a
state (such as Michigan, where he leads by less than 13,000 votes) or
win one (such as New Hampshire, where Clinton is up by around 3,000
votes). The results in a number of battleground states were so close
that a shift of around 55,000 votes
in three states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) would align the
national popular vote result with the Electoral College result for a
Clinton win.
What is important here is to recognize that there was no
Trump mandate, in the popular vote (which he lost by a significant
margin) or in the Electoral College (which he won narrowly, thanks to
close results that tipped a handful of states in his favor). Notably,
Trump’s total fell below 50 percent in the majority of states; he lost
20 states and the District of Columbia, and in at least seven additional
states he leads, but without a majority of the vote.
IS CLINTON’S POPULAR-VOTE VICTORY UNPRECEDENTED?
Yes. Clinton has already won the popular vote by a
dramatically larger number of ballots than anyone in history who did not
go on to be inaugurated as president.
There have been cases
in the past where popular-vote winners have not become president. Three
of them occurred in the 19th century, before the majority of Americans
were allowed to vote. Before this year, there was only one instance in
the modern era when a popular-vote winner was denied the presidency by
the Electoral College. That was in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore beat
Republican George W. Bush by 543,816 votes nationally.
Clinton’s popular-vote margin over that of Trump is now
greater than that of Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and
that of John Kennedy over Nixon in 1960.
Clinton is now winning roughly 47.8 percent of the vote, according to David Wasserman’s count for the Cook report. That’s a little less than the level reached by Gore in 2000.
As Clinton’s popular-vote margin increases, so, too, will her
percentage. It is possible that she will win the popular vote with the
highest percentage of anyone who has not taken office.
But the percentage that matters is Trump’s. The
Republican nominee will become president with less popular support than a
number of major-party candidates who lost races for the presidency.
Trump is now at 47.0 percent of the popular vote, according to the Cook
count. That is a lower percentage than were won by Mitt Romney in 2012,
John Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000, or Gerald Ford in 1976.
IS THIS ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON AND DONALD TRUMP?
No. Supporters of Clinton and critics of Clinton can kvetch
about the virtues of her candidacy, and about what remains of the
Democratic Party, for as long as their voices hold out. And Trump
supporters can certainly announce that “the rules are the rules.” But
this is about a higher principle than partisanship, and about something
that matters more than personalities. This is about democracy itself.
When the winner of an election does not take office, and when the loser
does, we have evidence of a system that is structurally rigged. Those
who favor a rigged system can defend it—and make empty arguments about
small states versus big states that neglect the fact that many of the
country’s smallest states (Delaware, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, and Vermont) backed the popular-vote winner. But those who favor
democracy ought to join their voices in support of reform.
There are national movements to address the mess that is made when the Electoral College trumps democracy. There are petitions that call for abolishing the Electoral College. California Senator Barbara Boxer
this week proposed a constitutional amendment to do just that, saying:
“This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and
still lose the presidency. The Electoral College is an outdated,
undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it
needs to change immediately.”
There is also the bipartisan National Popular Vote initiative. Promoted by the reform group FairVote,
it commits states to respect the national popular vote (as part of a
multi-state compact in which states with a majority of electoral votes
commit to assign them to the candidate who gets the most votes) and to
ending the absurdity of elections in which losers can become presidents.
IF SOMEONE TELLS ME I SHOULD “GET OVER IT,” HOW SHOULD I RESPOND?
Just tell them that you agree with Donald Trump, who in 2012 described the Electoral College a “disaster for democracy.” On Sunday, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes
that he still agrees with himself—even if he is not prepared to defer
to the will of the people in this instance. “I would rather see it where
you went with simple votes,” Trump explained. “You know, you get 100
million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.”
On Sunday night, Ivanka Trump appeared on 60 Minutes. She was invited on to 60 Minutes
because her father is now the president-elect, and she a member of his
transition team. Shortly after the program aired, her jewelry company
sent the following missive to an email list of fashion journalists.
As
far as attempts to cash in on proximity to power go, this is pretty
mundane stuff. But it served as a potent reminder that the Trump family
is both willing and able to monetize the presidency in ways both
unpredictable and unprecedented.
Donald Trump owns a business that has elaborate ties to government agencies, both foreign and domestic. In one of the many heavy-handed symbols the past year of American politics has produced, the president-elect just opened
a new hotel blocks from the White House — which operates out of the
historic Old Post Office building, which the federal government still
owns.
Trump will now get to appoint the head of the bureau that manages that building, a bureau that has tens of millions of dollars in contracts with his company.
This presents a formidable challenge to a man who won the presidency while campaigning against corruption and the “politics of personal profit.”
It’s impossible for Trump to insulate himself against all accusations
of self-dealing. After all, as a billionaire business owner, he stands
to directly benefit from an array of garden-variety Republican policies —
tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, abolition of the estate tax,
and a Labor Department more concerned with appeasing management than
unions, to name just a few.
But
Trump has shown no concern whatsoever for maintaining any appearance of
propriety. He has decided to shield himself from conflicts of interest
by putting his assets into what he refers to as a “blind trust,” but is
actually an entity that would allow him perfect knowledge of the assets
he holds — and that would be managed by his children, who are also
informal advisers to his government, and who may be on the cusp of
receiving top-secret security clearances at his request.
Which is to say: an entity that is the opposite of a blind trust.
“You
have to have some confidence in the integrity of the president,”
Giuliani told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “The man is an enormously wealthy man. I
don’t think there’s any real fear or suspicion that he’s seeking to
enrich himself by being president. If he wanted to enrich himself, he
wouldn’t have run for president.”
Tapper
then suggested that when the president-elect explains he will be
insulated from conflicts by a blind trust — and then sets up an entity
that is the opposite of a blind trust — that might raise real fears and
suspicions.
“You
realize that those laws don’t apply to the president, right?” Giuliani
replied. “The president doesn’t have to have a blind trust. For some
reason when the law was written, the president was exempt. I think he’s
in a very unusual situation.”
So, per Giuliani, we shouldn’t worry about Trump using the presidency to enrich himself because:
2.
Even if he did try to enrich himself, it would be totally legal,
because, “for some reason,” the president is exempt from
conflict-of-interest laws.
One of these reassurances is false. The other is true, but, also, the opposite of reassuring.
As
already mentioned, Trump will have abundant opportunity to enrich
himself through policy: Last July, the National Labor Relations Board
ruled against the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which was
challenging its employees’ effort to form a union. In November, the NLRB
ruled against Trump’s hotel again, for refusing to begin negotiations
with that union. Trump will now have the opportunity to appoint all five
members of the NLRB.
He will also get to appoint the head of the Internal Revenue Service, which is currently auditing Trump’s taxes.
Trump
can also profit off the presidency more directly — throughout his
campaign, the GOP nominee collected money from the Secret Service every
time its agents took a ride on one of his jets. While he will ride on
Air Force One as president, his children, who will be provided Secret
Service detail, will likely, often, travel aboard private planes,
thereby directing more taxpayer money into TAG Air Inc., Trump’s aviation company. TAG Air collected $6 million during the campaign.
The limits to Trump’s kleptocratic behavior are primarily political. However, the New York Timesnotes there is one legal restriction that Trump may have to wrestle with:
Perhaps
most troubling for Mr. Trump, several ethics lawyers said, is a
relatively obscure provision of the Constitution, called the Emoluments
Clause, which prohibits any government official
from taking payments or gifts from a foreign government, or even from
sharing in profits in a company that has financial ties to a foreign
government.
Mr. Trump has had business deals with foreign
governments or individuals with apparent ties to foreign governments,
including multimillion-dollar real estate arrangements in Azerbaijan and
Uruguay. His children have frequently traveled abroad to promote the
Trump brand, making trips to Canada, the United Arab Emirates and
Scotland. Closer to home, the Bank of China is a tenant in Trump Tower
and is a lender for another building in Midtown Manhattan where Mr.
Trump has a significant partnership interest.
“Doing business
with a foreign corporation, be it in Azerbaijan, Turkey or Russia, if is
it owned in part or controlled by a foreign government — any benefit
that would accrue to Mr. Trump could well be a violation of the
Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution,” said Kenneth A. Gross, a political ethics and compliance lawyer in Washington.
Regardless, it will be up to the Democratic Party to make Trump pay a political price for his self-dealing.
The
possibility that Hillary Clinton had leveraged her family’s political
power to extract charitable donations from foreign governments — and
speaking fees from Wall Street banks — was viewed as so contemptible,
the Democratic nominee routinely trailed her opponent on the question of who was more likely to combat corruption in D.C.
Trump
and his family are all but certain to pursue schemes far more blatantly
kleptocratic than the Clintons ever dreamed of. Democrats must see this
fact as a (politically) lucrative opportunity — and milk it for all
it’s worth.
32 Comments
Video
Full Speech: Trump Addresses Supporters
After winning the presidency, Donald J. Trump addressed supporters in New York City.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES on Publish Date November 9, 2016.
Photo by Eric Thayer for The New York Times.
Watch in Times Video »
Following is a transcript of Donald J. Trump’s victory speech, as compiled by Federal News Services.
TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone.
(APPLAUSE)
Sorry to keep you waiting; complicated business; complicated.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton.
(APPLAUSE)
She
congratulated us — it’s about us — on our victory, and I congratulated
her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign. I mean, she —
she fought very hard.
(APPLAUSE)
Hillary
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.
(APPLAUSE)
I mean that very sincerely.
(APPLAUSE)
Now
it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division; have to get
together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this
nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s time. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans, and this is so important to me.
(APPLAUSE)
For those who have chosen not to support me in the past, of which there were a few people. . .
(LAUGHTER)
. . . I’m reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.
(APPLAUSE)
As
I’ve said from the beginning, ours was not a campaign, but rather an
incredible and great movement made up of millions of hard-working men
and women who love their country and want a better, brighter future for
themselves and for their families.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s
a movement comprised of Americans from all races, religions,
backgrounds and beliefs who want and expect our government to serve the
people, and serve the people it will.
(APPLAUSE)
Working
together, we will begin the urgent task of rebuilding our nation and
renewing the American dream. I’ve spent my entire life and business
looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the
world. That is now what I want to do for our country.
(APPLAUSE)
Tremendous
potential. I’ve gotten to know our country so well — tremendous
potential. It’s going to be a beautiful thing. Every single American
will have the opportunity to realize his or her fullest potential. The
forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.
(APPLAUSE)
We
are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges,
tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our
infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we
will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.
We will also finally take care of our great veterans.
(APPLAUSE)
They’ve
been so loyal, and I’ve gotten to know so many over this 18-month
journey. The time I’ve spent with them during this campaign has been
among my greatest honors. Our veterans are incredible people. We will
embark upon a project of national growth and renewal. I will harness the
creative talents of our people and we will call upon the best and
brightest to leverage their tremendous talent for the benefit of all.
It’s going to happen.
(APPLAUSE)
We
have a great economic plan. We will double our growth and have the
strongest economy anywhere in the world. At the same time, we will get
along with all other nations willing to get along with us. We will be.
(APPLAUSE)
We’ll have great relationships. We expect to have great, great relationships. No dream is too big, no challenge is too great.
TRUMP: Nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach.
America will no longer settle for anything less than the best.
(APPLAUSE)
We
must reclaim our country’s destiny and dream big and bold and daring.
We have to do that. We’re going to dream of things for our country and
beautiful things and successful things once again.
I
want to tell the world community that while we will always put
America’s interests first, we will deal fairly with everyone, with
everyone — all people and all other nations. We will seek common ground,
not hostility; partnership, not conflict.
And
now I’d like to take this moment to thank some of the people who really
helped me with this, what they are calling tonight, very, very historic
victory.
First, I want to thank my parents, who I know are looking down on me right now.
(APPLAUSE)
Great people. I’ve learned so much from them. They were wonderful in every regard. I had truly great parents.
I
also want to thank my sisters, Maryanne and Elizabeth, who are here
with us tonight. And, where are they? They’re here someplace. They’re
very shy, actually. And my brother Robert — my great friend. Where is
Robert? Where is Robert?
(APPLAUSE)
My
brother Robert. And they should all be on this stage, but that’s OK.
They’re great. And also my late brother, Fred. Great guy. Fantastic guy.
(APPLAUSE)
Fantastic family. I was very lucky. Great brothers, sisters; great, unbelievable parents.
To Melania and Don. . .
(APPLAUSE) . . . and Ivanka. . .
(APPLAUSE)
.
. . and Eric and Tiffany and Baron, I love you and I thank you, and
especially for putting up with all of those hours. This was tough.
(APPLAUSE)
This
was tough. This political stuff is nasty and it’s tough. So I want to
thank my family very much. Really fantastic. Thank you all. Thank you
all.
And Lara, unbelievable job, unbelievable.
Vanessa, thank you. Thank you very much.
What
a great group. You’ve all given me such incredible support, and I will
tell you that we have a large group of people. You know, they kept
saying we have a small staff. Not so small. Look at all the people that
we have. Look at all of these people.
And
Kellyanne and Chris and Rudy and Steve and David. We have got — we have
got tremendously talented people up here. And I want to tell you, it’s
been — it’s been very, very special. I want to give a very special
thanks to our former mayor, Rudy Giuliani.
(APPLAUSE)
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. He traveled with us and he went through meetings. That
Rudy never changes. Where’s Rudy? Where is he? Rudy.
Governor Chris Christie, folks, was unbelievable.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you, Chris.
The
first man, first senator, first major, major politician, and let me
tell you, he is highly respected in Washington because he’s as smart as
you get: Senator Jeff Sessions. Where is Jeff?
(APPLAUSE)
Great man.
Another great man, very tough competitor. He was not easy. He was not easy. Who is that? Is that the mayor that showed up?
(LAUGHTER)
Is that Rudy? Oh, Rudy got up here.
Another
great man who has been really a friend to me. But I’ll tell you, I got
to know him as a competitor because he was one of the folks that was
negotiating to go against those Democrats: Dr. Ben Carson. Where is Ben?
(APPLAUSE)
Where is Ben?
TRUMP: And by the way, Mike Huckabee is here someplace, and he is fantastic. Mike and his family, Sarah — thank you very much.
General Mike Flynn. Where is Mike?
(APPLAUSE)
And
General Kellogg. We have over 200 generals and admirals that have
endorsed our campaign. And they’re special people and it’s really an
honor. We have 22 congressional Medal of Honor recipients. We have just
tremendous people.
A
very special person who believed me and, you know, I’d read reports
that I wasn’t getting along with him. I never had a bad second with him.
He’s an unbelievable star. He is. . .
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP:
That’s right. How did you possibly guess? So let me tell you about
Reince, and I’ve said this. I said, Reince — and I know it, I know. Look
at all those people over there. I know it. Reince is a superstar. But I
said, “They can’t call you a superstar, Reince, unless we win,” because
you can’t be called a superstar — like Secretariat — if Secretariat
came in second, Secretariat would not have that big, beautiful bronze
bust at the track at Belmont.
But
I’ll tell you, Reince is really a star. And he is the hardest-working
guy. And in a certain way, I did this — Reince, come up here. Where is
Reince? Get over here, Reince.
(APPLAUSE)
Boy oh boy oh boy. It’s about time you did this, Reince. My God.
(APPLAUSE)
Say a few words. No, come on, say something.
RNC CHAIRMAN REINCE PRIEBUS: Ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the United States, Donald Trump.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. It’s been an honor. God bless. Thank God.
TRUMP: Amazing guy.
Our partnership with the RNC was so important to the success and what we’ve done.
So I also have to say I’ve gotten to know some incredible people — the Secret Service people.
(APPLAUSE)
They’re
tough and they’re smart and they’re sharp, and I don’t want to mess
around with them, I can tell you. And when I want to go and wave to a
big group of people and they rip me down and put me back down on the
seat. But they are fantastic people, so I want to thank the Secret
Service.
(APPLAUSE)
And law enforcement in New York City. They’re here tonight.
(APPLAUSE)
These are spectacular people, sometimes underappreciated unfortunately, but we appreciate them. We know what they go through.
So,
it’s been what they call a historic event, but to be really historic,
we have to do a great job. And I promise you that I will not let you
down. We will do a great job. We will do a great job.
(APPLAUSE)
I
look very much forward to being your president, and hopefully at the
end of two years or three years or four years, or maybe even eight
years. . .
(APPLAUSE)
.
. . you will say, so many of you worked so hard for us, but you will
say that — you will say that that was something that you really were
very proud to do and I can. . .
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
And I can only say that while the campaign is over, our work on this movement is now really just beginning.
(APPLAUSE)
We’re
going to get to work immediately for the American people. And we’re
going to be doing a job that hopefully you will be so proud of your
president. You’ll be so proud. Again, it’s my honor. It was an amazing
evening. It’s been an amazing two-year period. And I love this country.
(APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you to Mike Pence. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Mr. Tigerli's memories
Copyright 2015/2016 by Letizia Mancino
Translated by Mary Holmes
All rights reseverd
My birthday!
I, Mr. Tigerli, can hardly save myself
from being submerged in red roses! Oh dear, a loving cat has his
problems.
Surrounded by a sea of flowers!
Mind you I’ve earned it. I have risked so much for love in my life!
I have become famous because of being such a great lover. I am a Casanova cat.
Am I exaggerating? Are there not cats more famous than me, artists who paint or play the piano?
That may be so, but they are “nobodies” in the art of loving!
Look in the internet under “Erotica Felina”! You will see that my name immediately appears on the screen.
People boarding their plane in Singapore have found me at once on Google.
I am a world famous cat.
Oh
no, I don’t loose my head over female cats. But women! I love women.
Yes only women. These wonderful creatures give me everything! Not only
affection, good conversation and food.
I was four months old when I discovered my partiality for women.
One
time I was cavorting on the bed with Roswitha, my first love – although
it was strictly forbidden to get onto the bed – when under the woolen
blanket I suddenly felt a wonderful soft plump area! Roswitha’s tummy! I
was running backwards and forwards across it when suddenly a shot of
adrenalin rushed through my cat brain. At an early age I became a slave
to love!
But
it was Roswitha’s foot that surprised me with my first erotic feelings.
She had unknowingly stretched it out of the bed under the pressure of
my four paws and for the first time I saw the naked foot of a woman.
Five small tempting little sausages attracted my attention. How
delicately the points moved. They were more attractive to look at than
the mice in the fresh grass. I miaowed to them “I’m going to bite you”!
I understand men who kiss the feet of women so ardently.
I
immediately lost my head and my innocence.
Now I began to nibble at these five little porkies.
Roswitha
continued to sleep and sighed softly. Encouraged I licked her whole
foot. Roswitha laughed sweetly and delightfully in her sleep.
Within eight months I was familiar with her leg.
I
love beautiful legs. Without hair, without ticks or other insects. They
have such a wonderful perfume. I could lick women’s legs without any
saliva. Wonderful! A refined lover begins with delicate movements, not
by taking the female creation by storm. Only goats climb on the back of
their females without paying a single compliment. You know, Betty, that
a Casanova doesn’t come straight to the point!
Roswitha,
I love you Oh, my first love! I felt so good in your bed. I lay at your
feet in the night. But after two intimate years deeply in love with
your feet, your husband came home. His field service away from home was
over, and sadly my home service with you too.
“Get
out of my bed”, he shouted. It’s not right to treat a loving cat so
rudely, even when men have the right to be jealous of us. We are after
all superior to them. We are supple and seductively beautiful until old
age. We are not rude or, even worse, drunkards! A woman can spend
romantic hours stroking us or even sleep with us in her bed and still
believe in platonic love, which is hardly possible for them with a man.
Women never become pregnant with us and this has advantages. Casanova
was the inventor of the condom. We are the condom.
I
was thrown out. Are men all so brutal, Betty? The bedroom door was
locked. But I was still allowed to live in the house: three sofas in the
living room, a bed in the guest bedroom, and an old divan in the cellar
were available for me. Roswitha could come to these. But I was
appalled!
Mr. Brummi avoided my dirty looks. Since then I have not befriended men, to say nothing of cats!
Without Roswitha’s feet I had to eke out a miserable existence in the house. And she complained that her feet were cold.
The
husband however was obdurate. He tried, without success, to take my
place: to stroke Roswitha’s feet, to rub them, to tickle them! But
Roswitha’s five little white toes remained in the bed as motionless as
if rigor mortis had set in.
There
were no more giggles. The doctor recommended an evening foot-bath. To
think that I should be replaced by a herbal bath! How outrageous!
Should
I have scratched at the bedroom door every night? I am a proud cat! I
would rather look around! She wouldn’t have heard me anyway. The husband
snores as loudly as a vacuum cleaner on the point of collapse. Should I
have dropped five dead mice in front of the door? But I don’t bring her
these presents any more. If you love me, I thought, get divorced!
“Darling” I hear her say to her husband, “Couldn’t you snore more quietly?”
I
comforted myself with her socks. The dirty ones, naturally. There were a
few flakes from her skin that I swallowed with joy. Some men even sniff
underwear. Idiotic love. That’s going too far for me. I, Mr Tigerli,
don’t do that because I am an aesthetic cat. Gradually I’d had enough of
the socks. Should I look for a new woman? The thought of being
unfaithful came to me quite suddenly.
The
nights in my basket passed peacefully - and also the nights in
Roswitha’s bed. Cold feet and migraines are two passion killers. The
husband was sullen. She never suffered with me. I laughed - even if cats
can’t laugh – behind my beard and knew that she had remained faithful.
I didn’t. I found the young servant in the house very fascinating. Her
legs were not so beautiful as Roswitha’s , but the risks were low. The young
woman was a Russian, temperamental, pretty and I liked her. Infidelity
was for me a triviality.
“Oh, Mr. Tigerli”, cried
Putziputzi (that was her pet name. I’ll say no more, she had two
brothers) “why are you licking me so tenderly?”
I could have answered. “You are my
second choice. I am missing Roswitha’s feet.” But I wrapped myself
round her leg, as all loving cats do.
She gave an even louder cry and ran away! I was perplexed!
I had no idea that genuine love-play begins with “No, no, I’d rather not, please don’t”.
I still had a lot to learn. Then I
thought: Quick , Tigerli, follow Putziputzi and sing her a song! After
that wonderful days followed: I showered her soft thighs with delicate
little love-bites. It was intoxicating!
We constantly changed the spot we
chose for our love-making. On Mondays and Fridays we lay on the three
sofas, on Tuesday on the bed in the guest room, but most of the time we
spent together in the cellar. She was crazy! Is this sex, I asked myself. What man can make a woman so happy?
Putziputzi was soon dismissed from her job.
I have no great opinion of
husbands and I must admit I have good reasons for this. But that their
wives should react with such jealousy was for me an insoluble puzzle.
It wasn’t long before I was lying in bed with Roswitha again.
The husband had probably seen that
the loss of a servant can have serious consequences. Now it was his job
to vacuum the whole house: from the cellar to the attic. Roswitha
assured him this would only be for a short transitional period, until
she had found a replacement for Putziputzi.
“Yes, yes! But the replacement
must be ugly and unattractive and she should only work in the house and
she must not play with Tigerli”, he answered.
“Yes, yes! I agree”, answered Roswitha, “and it would be wise if you would allow Tigerli to sleep in the bed with me again”.
The husband willingly gave his consent.
He nodded his agreement and it was clear that he saw me in a new light.
I was no longer a competitor.
What the heck, he thought! The guy was sleeping in my bed with my wife when I was away anyway!
So thanks to the vacuum-cleaner I was able to continue my love-affair with my first love Roswitha.
****************************************** Who is Mr. Tigerli?
Mr.
Tigerli in China Copyright 2016 by Letizia Mancino translation by Mary Holmes All rights reserved
Yes Betty, either or it seems he wanted to fly only with
Singapore Airways.
Boeing or Airbus, it’s just the same
isn’t it? Aren’t they both just fat birds with 500 passengers?
Yes, but Singapore Airlines has the
most beautiful airhostesses: delicate, fine, graceful…Mr. Tigerli had looked forward to the flight
so much!
So the little man was disappointed?
You just can’t imagine how disappointed
he was.
But thank God one of the hostesses was a
pretty Chinese girl. Mr. Tigerli purred loudly but she didn’t hear him because
the purring of the Airbus 380 was even louder.
The poor cat!
You’ve said it Betty. Mr. Tigerli was
in a very bad mood and asked me for a loud speaker.
I’m sure you can get one in 1st
Class.
“”Russian Girl” had even heard you over
the roar of the Niagara Falls” I said to Mr. Tigerli. “You are a very
unfaithful cat. You wanted to get to know Asiatic girls. That’s how it is when
one leaves one’s first love”.
And what did he say to that?
“Men are hunters” was his answer.
Yes, my dear cat, a mouse hunter. And
what else did he say?
Not another word. He behaved as if he
hadn’t heard me.
The Airbus is very loud.
I told him shortly “Don’t trouble
yourself about “Chinese Girl”. There will be enough even prettier girls in
China. Wait till we land in Guilin”.
Did he understand you?
Naturally Mr. Tigerli understood me
immediately. Yes, sweetheart, don’t worry. They will find you something sweet
to eat.
And he?
He was so happy.
No problem going through the immigration
control?
Naturally!Lots of problems. How could I explain to
customs that the cat had come as a tourist to China to buy shoes?
Fur in exchange for shoes…
Don’t be so cynical Betty!
Cat meat in exchange for shoes?
I said to the officials. He isn’t a cat, he is Casanova.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.
