Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 52

Trump angrily tweets Mueller probe is “unconstitutional”

AP/Evan Vucci

This article originally appeared on Raw Story

President Donald Trump claimed the special counsel probe of his campaign ties to Russia was “totally unconstitutional” in one of his most outrageous tweets yet.

The president claimed Monday morning that he had the “absolute right” to pardon himself, and he followed up that baseless argument by questioning the constitutionality of the special counsel probe.

“The appointment of the Special Councel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!” Trump tweeted, misspelling “counsel” as he has repeatedly done on social media. “Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!”

The appointment of the Special Councel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2018

The president later posted the same message again, but with corrected spelling.

The appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2018

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Donald Trump has been lying since day one

Getty/Win McNamee

What’s the most recent lie Donald Trump has told? Was it his lie about the Philadelphia Eagles showing that they don’t respect the flag and our national anthem when they didn’t show up at the White House on Tuesday? In fact, none of the Eagles “took a knee” during the playing of the national anthem last season. Was it his umpteenth denunciation of his Attorney General for refusing to warn him that he would recuse himself from the Russia investigation? In fact, neither Trump or Sessions had been made aware of any investigation of Trump’s campaign at the time he appointed Sessions to the office of Attorney General in November of 2016, so Sessions could hardly have warned him about something he had no knowledge of.

Trump’s lies are so fast and furious — the Washington Post estimates that he has told five or six of them a day since he took office — that I got curious about what the very first lie he told when he started running for president, so I went back and had a look at his announcement for president in June of 2015.

I have to say, we should have seen him coming: a fake candidate, running a fake campaign, making a fake announcement for president in front of a fake crowd. That was Donald Trump on June 16, 2015, the day he descended the escalator in Trump Tower and announced that he was running for president. The lying began with the very first words out of his mouth as a candidate for president: “Wow. Whoa. That is some group of people. Thousands. This is beyond anybody’s expectations. There’s been no crowd like this.”

He had a row of American flags behind him, and he faced a crowd of what could have been, because of the size of the lobby of Trump Tower, only several hundred spectators. Who were they, these cheering “thousands?” Many in the crowd had been hired from a New York-based casting agency for movie extras, Extra Mile Casting. Four days previously, the agency had put out a casting call: “We are looking to cast people for the event to wear T-shirts and carry signs and help cheer him in support of his announcement,” the agency’s email said. “We understand this is not a traditional ‘background job,’ but we believe acting comes in all forms and that is inclusive of this school of thought,” the agency explained. 

CNN would later report that on the street outside Trump Tower, “campaign volunteers flagged down pedestrians to hand them the campaign T-shirts and invite them inside for the announcement.”

With his fake crowd looking on, Trump began telling lie after lie after lie. What were we doing that day? Weren’t we paying attention to him at all? Because the lies poured out of him like a geyser.

“When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.” This from the man who would go on to impose fake tariffs on China and move to bail out the Chinese communications giant, ZTE, recently fined $1.2 billion for violating sanctions on trade with North Korea and Iran. $1.2 billion! That fine will never go through, they’ll never feel its pain, because the man who said “I beat China all the time” has let them off the hook.

Quickly, he pivoted to the country that would become his chief campaign whipping boy, Mexico. “And now they are beating us economically,” he wailed. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.” Mexico, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $1.15 trillion that year. United States GDP in 2015? $18.04 trillion. Hell, California’s GDP was more than twice that of Mexico at $2.45 trillion. I looked in vain for a story about Trump’s presidential announcement that would pick up just this one lie, about Mexico “killing us economically.” Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Trump was standing right there in front of us telling lies, and nobody called him out. Hell, nobody even noticed.

Then came his famous denunciation of Mexican immigrants. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” To support this outright gibberish, Trump told another lie: “I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting.” He didn’t speak to a single border guard. He didn’t pay attention to statistics that prove immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans. He just stood there making shit up.

Muslim terrorists were next: “Islamic terrorism is eating up large portions of the Middle East. They’ve become rich. I’m in competition with them.” Huh? Trump is competing with ISIS? WTF? Where did that come from?

“They took the oil that, when we left Iraq, I said we should’ve taken,” Trump declared. Oh, I get it now. We should have driven oil tankers into the desert in Iraq and “taken” the oil. That makes total sense. In 2015, Iraq’s oil production averaged 4.1 million barrels a day. With 42 gallons of oil in each barrel, that’s 160 million gallons of oil being pumped to the surface each day. With an average semi-truck oil tanker carrying 9,100 gallons, “taking” Iraq’s oil would have meant driving about 18,000 tankers into the oil fields each day and filling them up and driving away. And doing the same thing the next day. And the next. That’s what we would have had to do to “take” Iraq’s oil.

Did anyone point out this obvious lie Trump told about “taking” Iraq’s oil? Nope. Nobody did.

Off he went on Obamacare, first attacking the website used to sign up for the program: “And remember the $5 billion website? $5 billion we spent on a website, and to this day it doesn’t work. A $5 billion website.” Lie and lie. Estimates of the cost of setting up Healthcare.gov ran from $834 million to $2.1 billion. Did it work? Almost 9 million Americans signed up for Obamacare from November 2014 to February 2015, the official sign up period. Prior to the implementation of Obamacare, 47 million Americans were without health insurance. By 2015, that number had dropped to 29 million. A year later, that number dropped to 27 million.

Trump was out there on the very first day he ran for president lying over and over and over again. He lied that he would impose a “tax” of 35 percent on cars imported into the U.S. Never happened. He said Ford Motor Company would change its mind about building a new plant in Mexico and “beg for a little while,” and say “please, please, please.” Ford cancelled the plant in Mexico and moved it to China. Will those Ford cars made in China face tariffs when they are shipped back here? Take a guess.

He said the Saudis would start paying for the protection we give them with our military. “There is so much wealth out there that can make our country so rich again, and therefore make it great again. Because we need money. We’re dying. We’re dying. We need money. We have to do it. And we need the right people.”

Where do you begin? We’re “dying.” “We need money.” He yelled about the national debt, said we’d soon be at $20 trillion. Well, he got that one right. But what has he done about it? Pass a tax cut that will produce an annual deficit of $1 trillion by next year, according to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, a non-partisan watchdog group.

He said, “we need the right people.” Hard to argue with that. Who would he go on to hire in his cabinet? Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. How long did he last? 231 days. Out because he had spent one million dollars on private jets flying around the country and overseas. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt: currently facing at least 14 investigations for flying first class on the taxpayer’s dime, spending over $3 million on his private security detail, renting a sweetheart deal room on Capitol Hill from a lobbyist doing business with the EPA, and using one of his EPA assistants to run personal errands for him on the taxpayer’s dime. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who’s been flying around on private planes. HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who tried to spend $31,000 of tax-payer dollars on a new dining room table for his office.

He claimed Obama couldn’t get anything done because he was always “out playing golf.” Trump has been in office for 495 days. He has spent 115 days playing golf. That’s about 25 percent of his presidency spent hitting a little white ball and chasing it on an electric cart. At least Obama walked.

Trump trumpeted his love for generals: “I will find — within our military, I will find the General Patton or I will find General MacArthur, I will find the right guy. I will find the guy that’s going to take that military and make it really work. Nobody, nobody will be pushing us around.” He hired General Michael Flynn as his first national security adviser. Fired. Under indictment for lying to the FBI. Cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. He replaced Flynn with General H.R. McMaster. Fired. He lasted one year and one month. Do you know who the U.S. commanders are in Iraq and Afghanistan? Neither do I. Oh, I could look them up on Google, but why bother? Trump probably doesn’t know who they are, either.

He bragged about his phony 10 billion dollar net worth, and attacked the stock market as “so bloated.” Practically every time the Dow Jones Average has gone up, he’s taken credit for it. When it goes back down, you couldn’t find him with a bloodhound.

He claimed he was going to “save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts. Have to do it.” What did Republicans do the day after they passed their tax cut for billionaires and millionaires? They started claiming that they were going to have to cut Medicare and Social Security because they were blowing up the deficit. Where was Trump? He was walking through a big dinner down at Mar a Lago telling his rich friends, “you just got a lot richer.”

“Sadly, the American dream is dead,” Trump concluded. “But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.”

He trademarked “Make America Great Again” as a campaign slogan in 2012, three years before he announced for president. You can buy an “official” MAGA hat on his own personal website, www.shopdonaldjtrump.com. A red one costs $25. A pink one will set you back $30. He’s offering a 20 percent discount on blue and yellow hats at $40.

Or you can get the official North Korea Summit coin, depicting Donald J. Trump and North Korea Supreme Leader Kim jung Un for $24.95. If you act fast, you can pick one up at a discount for $19.95, from the website offering them, www.whitehousegiftshop.com, which has nothing to do with either the White House or Donald Trump.

Trump has been lying to us from day one. He told dozens of whoppers every time he stepped before an audience at campaign rallies in 2016. He ordered his press secretary to go before the press on the day he took office and lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. He has kept lying, day after day, lie after lie.

We weren’t listening closely enough on June 16, 2015 when he told one lie after another making his announcement for the presidency. We’ve been paying for it ever since.

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Millennials are finding hope up the frozen food aisle

Getty/LightFieldStudios

I’m a total food snob, so I was shocked to really like my Trader Joe’s steamed chicken soup dumplings, which I plucked from the freezer aisle and microwaved according to the package directions, for two minutes in their cute little tray. The broth was gingery and satisfying, the dumpling skin was tender but not gluey, and the whole meal only set me back $2.99. But I was still a little hungry — the soup dumplings were half the size of the ones at my local Chinese restaurant — so I defrosted a few Applegate organic chicken strips, which were lightly breaded and perfect dunked in jalapeno ketchup. For dessert, a Diana’s Bananas frozen dark chocolate dipped banana, made from only banana, chocolate and peanut oil, virtuous yet satisfactorily decadent. My first frozen meal in a very long time was a success.

Shannon Sarna, 35, author of “Modern Jewish Baker” and mother of two is combing through her freezer in South Orange, NJ. Her stash consists of frozen pizza from Trader Joe’s, French fries, chicken fingers, mangoes, strawberries, and butternut squash.

“What about Eggos?” I’ve heard that ‘Stranger Things’ has inspired a nostalgic fondness for the treats.

“We do have frozen waffles,” Sarna says, “But they’re the Kashi whole grain blueberry kind.”

Sarna’s freezer has nothing on her fridge, which overflows with fresh fruits and veggies from multiple farmers’ markets. Sarna admits that her own kitchen is “bougie-er and pickier” than the one she grew up in. “Frozen food is not in line with how we were taught to consume,” she says of a generation obsessed with organic/local/sustainable/handcrafted everything. “I’m more inclined to pay attention to how something was sourced than to browse the freezer aisle. I’m sure it also has to do with my socioeconomic bracket,” Sarna reflects. “You can’t make kale chips out of frozen kale.”

In my own freezer: some pricey beef that I wasn’t going to get a chance to cook in time while fresh, Talenti Black Cherry Gelato (the best flavor, hands down), a bunch of boxes of popsicles, and an ice pack for my fiancé’s achy knee. That’s it.

“Frozen foods have had to fight an uphill battle from the perception of TV dinners in the 60's through the 90's, when the majority of frozen food was industrialized and processed,” says millennial food writer Gowri Chandra. In this moment where consumers care more than ever about “real” and “clean” food, microwaving a plastic container full of a long list of unpronounceable ingredients seems sacrilege. But frozen food is getting a serious makeover. “People are just starting to find out that frozen produce, for example, can rival or exceed fresh produce in nutrients and quality because it can be picked at ripeness and then frozen versus being picked weeks before” as is often the case, Chandra explains.

The frozen food industry is optimistic that its reputation is on the up and up, and that millennials are giving their goods, from appetizers and entrees to fruits and veggies, a real chance. Market Watch reported that frozen food sales are growing for the first time in five years, according to the latest RBC Capital Markets report. They point to “quick freeze” technology that seals in flavor and nutrients without unwanted artificial additives, the serious convenience factor of appetizers and fast meals straight from the freezer, and gentle price tags that make frozen options appeal to young families and single shoppers. “The recent uptick in popularity stems in part from a record-high level of single Americans as millennials wait to form families,” Moneyweb writes. “Frozen meals are an easy way to control portions, and there’s typically very little waste.” Ice cold practicality.

A new generation of brands are revamping the image of the freezer aisle — sexier and of the moment, less TV-dinner-dreary. When Elisabeth de Kergorlay lived in Paris (in Paris!), she discovered the joys of fancy frozen food. The city boasted whole shops devoted to the pleasures of frozen delicacies. All she’d have to do was reheat, and voila! Dinner was served. Upon moving to back New York, de Kergorlay found the selection of high quality frozen eats scarce. So in 2014, she set out to create her own line of flash-frozen dishes that could live up to her discerning palate, Babeth’s Feast. Her offerings include Brussels sprout and shallot crumble, antibiotic-free Hudson Valley Beef Bourguignon, and fluffy chocolate soufflé. “Our creative chefs craft small-batch, French-inspired, restaurant-quality food,” the company swaggers. Why shouldn’t the frozen food aisle adopt highbrow foodie speak?

Babeth’s Feast is in good company. The competition —  companies like Amy’s, Evol Foods, and Kashi among them — celebrates high quality ingredients, eschews preservatives and artificial ingredients, and boasts low levels of sodium and fat — an ideal combination of convenience and nutrition. Saffron Road sells global-inspired frozen entrees like Lemongrass Basil Chicken and Lamb Saag with Basmati Rice made with “grass-fed cattle, wild-caught fish and no hormones, antibiotics or GMOs” at places like Whole Foods. The Perfect Gourmet’s “chic but classic Parisian lamb is prepared in a traditional demi-glace sauce, with a hint of rosemary and mint.” Their catalog’s soft lighting and casually elegant tablescapes channel the look of a food magazine or a stylish lifestyle blog. Gone is the depressing vibe of a lonely Lean Cuisine or a bleak breakfast burrito — it’s a whole new frozen world.

If millennials are more discerning than ever about their food, they can also be more flexible. Their sometimes-fastidious diets and close attention to ingredients have created more opportunities for frozen food products, not less. Chandra believes her generation is opening their minds to frozen possibilities, especially when it comes to categories like gluten-free. “I'd say 80% of the time frozen gluten-free breads are better than anything that you can find non-frozen, because of the stabilizers needed for the big brand packaged breads to give them shelf life,” Chandra explains. “Some of the best frozen gluten-free bread brands — Whole Foods has an excellent one — far outrival their shelf-stable counterparts. Same with gluten-free pastas: give me frozen (or refrigerated) gluten free ravioli over the dried stuff, and I'm not going to think of it as inferior.”

The frozen food aisle is a boon to shoppers with dietary restrictions. Consumers search frozen aisles for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and kosher products. “There are so many great plant-based meat brands out there, many of which simply have to be frozen for distribution,” says Chandra.

As for Sarna’s freezer, all those items have a purpose. The pizza and fries are foods she’ll serve her kids for a treat or in a pinch. She can whir the frozen butternut squash into a quick soup if her refrigerator is low on fresh options. The mangoes and berries will get baked into a crumble or a coffee cake or blended into a smoothie. “My six-year-old daughter knows mangoes aren’t in season,” Sarna says. “We are spoiled. I didn’t grow up with blood oranges and Asian pears. My kids are exposed to more fruits, vegetables, cuisines, and flavors — a greater variety than ever before.” And as we become increasingly sophisticated and particular, so do our frozen food options.

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Ivanka Trump allegedly connected Michael Cohen to Russian who offered to arrange Trump-Putin meeting

AP/Getty/Salon

Potential new links between Donald Trump's inner circle and the Kremlin continue to come to the light. And the newest name to surface is none other than the president's eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, who is also a senior White House adviser.

The first daughter allegedly connected Michael Cohen, the president's embattled lawyer, to a Russian weightlifter in 2015 who said he could introduce Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a shocking new report.

Champion heavy-weight weightlifter Dmitry Klokov suggested setting up the meeting in an effort to help facilitate the construction of the 100-story Trump World Tower Moscow, according to BuzzFeed News. But Cohen, who reportedly exchanged at least two emails and one phone call with the athlete, refused the offer.

The giant development project in Moscow, which was ultimately scrapped, originated prior to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. It has raised questions about the ethical quagmire and potential conflicts of interest facing a president with unprecedented foreign business dealings — scrutiny he could possibly avoid by releasing his tax returns.

Trump has repeatedly denied any conflicts of interest and has transferred control of the Trump Organization to his two adult sons, Donald, Jr. and Eric.

Trump's Moscow project came under intense criticism after the New York Times published emails sent by one of his business associates, Felix Sater, about the project.

"Our boy can become president of the USA, and we can engineer it," Sater wrote in a 2015 email obtained by the New York Times. "I will get all of Putin's team to buy in on this. I will manage this process."

Sater also said in the email that he could arrange for Ivanka Trump to sit in Putin's "private chair at his desk and office in the Kremlin."

It is not known how Ivanka Trump could have come into contact with Klokov, or whether he would have been able to set up a meeting with Trump had Cohen not declined the assistance.

Congressional investigators working for the Senate Intelligence committee have reviewed emails between Cohen and Klokov, two sources told BuzzFeed.

A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump's attorney told the outlet that she did not know about the Trump-Moscow project "until after a non-binding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the organization about the proposal and, even internally, was only minimally involved. Her only role was limited to reminding Mr. Cohen that, should an actual deal come to fruition (which it did not), the project, like any other with the Trump name, conform with the highest design and architectural standards."

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), chair of the Intelligence Committee, declined to comment on the alleged interaction, but told BuzzFeed that he could see how Russian athletes, like the country's oligarchs, might be lured into Russian politics.

"I can't speak specifically to athletes, but you see the oligarchs, and there is a model for them. And they do things on behalf of the country and on behalf of Putin at their own expense. They're not asked. They just assume the responsibility to do it, whether that's a mercenary army in Syria or it's screwing with elections, whether it's the hacking out of the St. Petersburg facility," Burr said. "So it's not a stretch to say if Putin allows oligarchs to make money – as long as they don’t get involved in politics and they do things that are beneficial to Putin – I could see athletes falling into the same category."

The report sheds a new spotlight on Cohen, the president's former personal attorney, who is under criminal investigation and who has played an integral role in many of Trump's biggest deals, including a relentless attempt to build the tallest building in Europe in the Russian capital.

Against attention scolding: Stop policing people’s so-called distractions

Getty/Theo Wargo

It didn't take long after the initial news of designer Kate Spade's apparent suicide to break for the inevitable attention scolding began. On social media Tuesday, armchair pundits immediately commenced asking why this death, and not the volcano in Guatemala, was trending. Why this, when immigrant children are separated from their parents, when the death toll in Puerto Rico continues to rise? In my own circle, a San Francisco friend noted that she'd already been chided for talking about it on the same day as the California primary.

Interesting fact: People can care about more than one thing at a time. They can even care about things when you don't see them caring about them!

The ubiquity of public reactions to news events — both from the major media and the guy with six Twitter followers — makes for a certain degree of competitiveness around collective thought. That "trending" column, that "most read" list, they tell you in blunt and sometimes dismaying frankness where our mental and emotional priorities seem to lie. They don't tell the whole story, though.

There are serious ethical discussions to be had about the way that news stories are covered, and what gets attention and what do not. The still stubbornly homogenous staffing of media companies is blatantly reflected in the amount of time and coverage certain issues get. Stories about poor people and marginalized communities are under reported, and that's a massive journalistic failure.

But are there are good reasons to not misdirect frustration about important issues into hostility at human beings. For starters, shaming people is not an effective way to win anybody over. (I went to Catholic school; trust me.) When Senator Chris Murphy tweeted out late last month the edict to "Stay focused. Health care premiums, gas prices skyrocketing. Immigrant kids ripped away from their parents. The federal government morphing into a kleptocracy. Wanna talk about Roseanne today? Fine. But tomorrow, let’s get back to work," he no doubt had a point about those topics.

Stay focused.

Health care premiums, gas prices skyrocketing.

Immigrant kids ripped away from their parents.

The federal government morphing into a kleptocracy.

Wanna talk about Rosanne today? Fine. But tomorrow, let’s get back to work.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 30, 2018

A middle-aged, straight, white man decreeing exactly how much attention the rest of us should pay to a story that had everything to do with racism, however, reeked of privilege. What if "the work" is also respect for people of color, Senator? It's a common political and pundit ploy, and an exasperating one. It says, the things that are important to me are the things that are important. I, smart and influential person, will tell you what constitutes something real and what is a "distraction."

Popular culture is, for many of us, a way in to complex conversations about race, about gender, about class, about mental health. It's arrogant to be dismissive about them. If you think ten years of Kardashians has just been about Kim's eyelashes and not also about race, sex and gender identity, bitch please. If you think "Roseanne," the Philadelphia Eagles and Kate Spade are just about TV, sports and fashion, you need to try a little harder.

And here's something else: Feeling connected to someone's comedy or music or art is a good thing. It's a human thing. I remember when a friend callously remarked, when Amy Winehouse died the day after the Norway school massacre, that more attention was being paid to "a dead junkie" than a group of innocent children. The association was clear in his mind — any grief over this one woman was compassion that could be directly diverted to another cause. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Now, the death of Kate Spade — and the peevishness from certain quarters that it has received the attention it has — likewise speaks spectacularly to the enviable cluelessness of those whose mental health issues are not acute. In an email to the Kansas City Star Tuesday, a woman identified as Spade's sister said that she'd worked with her about getting into a treatment center for her issues, but that "In the end, the 'image' of her brand (happy-go-lucky Kate Spade) was more important for her to keep up. She was definitely worried about what people would say if they found out."

If this account is true, it certainly jibes with the shame and stigma that people with mental health problems often face. It's a reminder that we have a commander-in-chief who has bragged about never seeing a psychiatrist and whose budget slashes funding for mental health services by as much as half a billion dollars. So if the loss of a beloved figure is a means for somebody to talk about depression or suicide or addiction or grief, maybe let them have that, OK? Because the narrative of forced heroism imposed on people who face disease so sharply contrasts that of people trying to just stay alive through mental health issues, it's ridiculous. Trust me, I know — I've been called a warrior for having cancer and weak for having PTSD. What I've learned is that stomping in to minimize people's legitimate suffering because other people in the world suffer differently is callous, and it doesn't alleviate anybody's problems anywhere.

The eagerness to brush off stories with a mental health angle as less legitimate than those about earthquakes or politics also plays out in other ways. If you can look around at your social media feed or the people you're sitting in a bar with and sincerely observe that you don't think people are sufficiently freaked out or anxious for your liking, congratulations. You must be a pretty stable individual, surrounded by others with similar luxury. But when I see a tweet, especially from a journalist, that we're not scared enough of whatever is going on in the news today, I think, gee, that's funny, those of us with depression and anxiety and PTSD feel like we're bringing our A game here. Guess we'll have to tell our therapists we're underperforming. All I know is that my online life got exponentially better when I muted the accounts of some very popular media Cassandras.

The arm waving, "Look over here and be scared!" message presumes that the people receiving it exist in a state of placid obliviousness. Wake up, sheeple, it says. It scolds that if you're tweeting during "The Bachelorette," you can't possibly also care about reproductive justice. If you're posting a smiling selfie, you're being selfish about prison reform. It creates a vicious paradox. If you don't constantly prove your fears and anxieties, you're not paying attention. But if you do talk about them, you're just whining. Be afraid, all the time, but don't have an actual diagnosed disorder about it! Keep your eyeballs pried open to every single horror in the world, but never cop to genuine distress or sadness!

There is more than enough sad, scary stuff to go around. Guilt tripping doesn't make people care about the things you care about; it just makes them feel bad about the things they care about. I promise that we can look at our most serious social issues through the lens of a celebrity meltdown, we can cry over someone we never met and we can protest and vote too. Any time we can console each other, support each other, or, quite usefully, entertain each other, that is not wasted. And we cultivate the empathy we all so mightily need right now by sharing our experiences, not shaming them.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

The legacy of suicide
We need to bust the taboos of mental health

Pamela Anderson and Tucker Carlson bond over Julian Assange, Russia

AP/Jimmy Olsen/Getty/Roy Rochlin

Model and actress Pamela Anderson stood behind her friend and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Tuesday evening during an appearance on Fox News, telling host Tucker Carlson that "Assange is just an incredible person" and that "his intention wasn't to get Trump elected, it was to give true information so people could make educated decisions about the person they wanted to vote for."

Anderson, who knows Vladimir Putin, also defended Russia, saying the country is America's favorite scapegoat.

"Everyone likes to blame Russia when anything goes wrong in America and I’ve spoken at the Kremlin many times and the last time I was there, there was something happening — and the first thing they say to me is 'oh what have we done wrong this time,'" she said. "It's kind of a common joke that America likes to blame them for everything."

Anderson called the accusation that Assange and Putin worked together to defeat Hillary Clinton and to get Donald Trump elected as "crazy." She said that she was with Assange before the election and he had no clue that Trump would win. "But you know, it turned out the way it did," Anderson told Tucker. "Some people are happy."

#ICYMI part of my interview with Pamela Anderson on her friendships with Julian Assange and Putin. pic.twitter.com/AdzQeb9mI6

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2018

Anderson said her connection to Russia came through her longtime animal activism. She said she was invited to the Kremlin to speak about her work, "they wanted me to continue my work in Russia" and she now travels there often.

For Assange, the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, who is currently under house arrest in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Anderson claims that he is misunderstood. "Assange is just an incredible person," she said. "If you read anything that his mother says about him — that’s kind of an interesting source to go to — he’s always been like this. Since a child, he’s been worried about doing the right thing. And I think he’s very brave."

"He's a great testament to the human spirit," Anderson added, "to be in a situation that he's in and to have the fight he has in him and the sense of humor, he's really an incredible person."

Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador in 2012 after fleeing from sexual assault allegations in Sweden and has been living in its London Embassy since then. But prior to his arrest, Assange was under criminal investigation by the U.S. federal government for publishing a series of classified leaks from Chelsea Manning.

Anderson said she worries about Assange's health, claiming he's had no access to sunlight for the last six years and that he's now cut off from the Internet and barred from having phone calls or visitors. She suspects that he's being pushed out from the embassy, and if he's forced to leave, he'll be arrested and extradited to the United States.

During an interview with Megyn Kelly on the "Today" show, Anderson said that in some ways she believes if Assange was to have a trial in the United States, "people would really understand the truth and a lot would come out and it could be a good thing." She affirmed that he is the "bravest" person she knows.

 

Scott Pruitt aide resigns from EPA amid Chick-fil-A, Trump mattress scandals: report

AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the Environmental Protection Agency and has been in the middle of a number of scandals since taking, finds himself in the midst of yet another ethics scandal.

Pruitt, who has been at the center of scandals involving receiving a lucrative deal on a condominium rental from the wife of an energy lobbyist, ordering government employees to do private work for him, granting an unauthorized pay raise to one of his employees, ordering an expensive soundproof box, arranging for needlessly expensive travel for himself on the taxpayers' dime, meeting with energy executives regularly since the start of his tenure, and punishing employees who attempted to blow the whistle on his controversial activities, allegedly attempted to help his wife open up a Chick-Fil-A franchise. As The New York Times reported:

Emails released to the Sierra Club under the Freedom of Information Act show that Sydney Hupp, a former scheduler for Mr. Pruitt, contacted Chick-fil-A’s chief executive, Dan T. Cathy, in May 2017 at Mr. Pruitt’s behest to set up a meeting.

After a back-and-forth in which Ms. Hupp initially said the administrator “didn’t mention a specific topic” of discussion, she told the company’s director of regulatory affairs that Mr. Pruitt’s request was of a personal nature. “The Administrator would like to talk about a potential business opportunity with Mr. Cathy. Nothing very pressing, just hoping to connect sometime in the next month or so,” Ms. Hupp wrote.

Mr. Pruitt ultimately spoke by phone with Chick-fil-A representatives.

Mr. Cathy, reached by phone, referred questions to a company spokeswoman, Carrie Kurlander. Ms. Kurlander said she would not comment further. In an email to The Washington Post, which first reported Mr. Pruitt’s effort to seek a business deal with Chick-fil-A, Ms. Kurlander had said the call was about the possibility of Mr. Pruitt’s wife, Marlyn, opening a franchise of the fast food chain. Ms. Kurlander told the Post that Mrs. Pruitt never completed the franchisee application.

Part of the problem facing Pruitt here is that the Chick-Fil-A scandal is hardly an isolated incident.

One of his top aides, Millan Hupp, announced her resignation on Wednesday as a result of the numerous scandals, according to The Atlantic. EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox told The Atlantic when questioned, "You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash."

"It's rare to see more than one or two scandals involving an administrator, if at all, during an entire administration," Jordan Libowitz, the communications director of the Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Salon. "To have over a dozen at this point, it's shocking that he could keep his job."

Libowitz's concerns were echoed by Corey Goldstone, media strategist for the Campaign Legal Center.

"Pruitt’s behavior has shown his casual disregard for ethical norms," Goldstone told Salon by email. "At the very least, Pruitt’s use of an agency staffer to try and secure employment for his wife is a misuse of his government position. At the most, it raises questions about whether he broke federal code for the inducement or coercion of benefits through use of his office."

He also noted that this is hardly the worst scandal that Pruitt has been caught up in.

"Arguably, Pruitt’s apartment arrangement is worse. It raises all sorts of red flags. We’ve learned that the lobbyist – who had business before the EPA – appeared to give Pruitt a favorable rental deal," Goldstone told Salon.

Yet despite the deluge of scandals, Pruitt seems to be secure in his job as head of the EPA, a fact that has also raised eyebrows among ethics experts.

"It's pretty clear at this point that the Trump administration does not care about ethics scandals," Libowitz told Salon.

Goldstone pointed out that the situation has reached a point where the federal government needs to intervene.

"It’s important that the EPA’s Office of Inspector General thoroughly reveal all ongoing inquiries related to Pruitt, including his use of first-class travel, security detail, staff raises, and reassignments of other employees," Goldstone told Salon. "If the Office of Inspector General is not conducting thorough and independent oversight, Congress must step in and investigate the conduct at the agency."

Libowitz had a similar observation."I think the tone is set at the top. If he is allowed to do this kind of thing, who else is going to do it? It sends a signal to other people in the government that ethics rules don't really apply," Libowitz told Salon.

When Pruitt was asked about the Chick-Fil-A scandal on Wednesday, he initially characterized it as a reaction to his policies before praising the franchise's conservative Christian owners and then boosting their product.

I asked Scott Pruitt a quick question about the reports he tried to help his wife become a Chick-fil-A franchisee.

"With great change comes, I think, opposition...I love, she loves [Chick-fil-A]" pic.twitter.com/gND2tdMq1e

— Jessica Smith (@JessicaASmith8) June 6, 2018

"With great change comes, you know, I think opposition," Pruitt said. "There is significant change that's happening not only in the EPA but across this administration, and it's needed. And, look my wife is an entrepreneur herself. I love, she loves, we love Chick-Fil-A. It's a franchise of faith and it's one of the best in the country. And that's something we're very excited about. And we need more of them in Tulsa and we need more of them across the country. So anyway. So it's an exciting time."

One of the reasons why Pruitt's job seems to be secure, despite the growing number of scandals, is that President Donald Trump is reportedly interested in using him as a replacement for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with whom Trump has had a falling out due to Sessions' decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Trump also shares Pruitt's ideology when it comes to environmental issues, particularly when it comes to his skepticism toward man-made climate change and his belief that environmental regulations do little more than stifle business development.

Interestingly, Pruitt has also been effectively challenged recently on his policymaking as well. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a successful Freedom of Information Act request to understand Pruitt's claim that science does not support the notion that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming, according to Scientific America. A judge ruled that "particularly troubling is the apparent premise of this agency challenge to the FOIA request, namely: that the evidentiary basis for a policy or factual statement by an agency head, including about the scientific factors contributing to climate change, is inherently unknowable."

Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times, now he runs it
Trump's choice to lead the EPA has a long history of hostility toward that agency.

Karrueche Tran on life after Chris Brown: “Mine is a great story of a ‘glow-up'”

Getty/Angela Weiss

When I booked model and actress Karrueche Tran as a guest on my feminist pop-culture podcast "Poptarts" — to promote her new film "The Honor List" and the second season of her excellent TNT show "Claws" — I had a dilemma on my hands. Tran is an emerging talent making a name for herself in female-focused ensemble projects. I genuinely enjoy her work and I have no doubt that the roles she chooses resonate with "Poptarts" listeners. But as much as I wanted to keep my questions focused on Tran’s professional life, I would not have been doing my job as an interviewer if I ignored the piece of her story that launched her career — her high-profile relationship with R&B singer Chris Brown.

Brown and Tran began dating in 2010 not long after Brown was accused of beating up his other well-documented paramour, Rihanna. They were on-again-off-again for the next five years, only parting ways in 2015 when Tran testified when seeking a restraining order, which she was granted, that Brown had been abusive and had threatened her, and it was revealed that Brown had fathered a child with another woman. Their breakup was on the front page of every tabloid in America and so was Tran’s photo. Yet, the woman behind those troubling images remained a mystery until she emerged recently with a restraining order against Brown and a roster of original work to call her own.

“My co-host Callie and I were just talking on the way over here about how, if we had a bad breakup years ago, and that’s what people still wanted to talk to us about after we’d moved on with our lives — we would feel some type of way about that,” I told Tran candidly when we finally met to record the show.

“Welcome to my life!” she replied with.

“But how do you manage it?” I asked. “I know a lot of women identify with you because of the relationship you were in [with Chris Brown]. You went on the OWN show 'Iyanla: Fix My Life' after the breakup, and I know you have a restraining order against him that is public knowledge. So I’m wondering if, as all of these stories of #MeToo are coming out, if women are responding to you as someone who perhaps has gone through what they are going through. And if women are reaching out to you as a source of inspiration as they’re trying to get out of their own bad situations.”

“Yeah,” said Tran. “After that [Iyanla interview], I actually had a lot of women of various ages and various races come up to me and say, ‘I watched your interview and I loved it and I thank you so much because I was able to learn from it and thank you for being so open because I was in the same situation.’ And it was so interesting because, when I did that interview, the space that I was in was such a whirlwind and there was so much happening, I didn’t think I was going to inspire people. It was just something that I was really dealing with. So the fact that I was able to reach out and touch or inspire 1, 2, 3, 100, 1000 people—that means a lot to me. I’m glad that I was able to use my mistakes and say, ‘Hey! Don’t make the same mistakes I did!’ It’s still weird thinking about it, but I’m glad I was able to help other people in that same situation."

“A lot of women in abusive situations don’t want to talk about it,” added "Poptarts" co-host Callie Watts. “Many women don’t want to admit it to themselves, or have a sense of shame about it. Even though we know that it happens all over the place to tons of people—it always helps to hear someone say out loud, ‘This happened to me. You can get out of it!’”

“It’s great to talk about it,” Tran agreed, “because when you bottle so much up inside, one day you’re going to burst like a bubble. That’s how I used to be. I didn’t even talk to my friends about this. They didn’t know, I’d keep it to myself, and then finally I was able to let things be told and speak my voice. It is a refreshing feeling to know that there are other people out there that can relate."

“It’s also the power of the #MeToo movement in general,” said Watts. “Now if some creep touches your butt at work, you know you’re not alone and you won’t automatically get fired for speaking up about it.”

“Yes! You’re not alone,” said Tran. “If you went through something, it’s OK to speak up about it and speak up for what’s right. It’s kind of a scary thing to speak about things like that. [But when it comes to my past,] it is what it is. I can’t run from it. I can’t take an eraser and erase it. I can only grow from here. Looking at myself now, at the woman that I am now, I’m so much better than I was then, I’m so much more confident, I’m so much more sure about what I want and what I don’t want. Unfortunately, I had to go through those situations to become who I am today, and I wouldn’t change anything about it because I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t go through that period in my life. Mine is a great story of a ‘glow-up,’ you know? At least I can look back and say, ‘Whew! At least I got through that. I’m not dealing with that shit no more!’"

"I had to find my voice. I was so in my shell and afraid to be who I am," she continued. "Now I look at myself and think, ‘OK girl! You’ve got some personality!’ Just because I’ve been hiding from so much. I was scared to let the world know who I really am. The world is a scary place, especially on social media. I used to think, ‘Oh my God, are they going to like me? Are they not going to like me?’ But now, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t care. Whatever. This is who I am. I’m happy and that’s it!”

Listen to Poptarts’ entire interview with Karrueche Tran:

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play and on BUST's website.

Betsy DeVos stuns Senate Democrats, says Trump’s Parkland school safety commission won’t study guns

Getty/Mark Wilson

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the Federal Commission on School Safety, formed by President Donald Trump in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, will not examine the impact guns play in school violence.

The statement, provided in testimony, stunned many of the panel's Democratic members. Perplexed senators who wondered how the commission could ignore the topic when it was a former student with a military-style assault rifle that left 17 students and staff dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February.

"That's not part of the commission’s charge, per se," the education secretary said in response to a question from Senator Patrick J. Leahy, D-VT, about whether the commission would study the impact of firearms in school shootings.

"So we'll look at gun violence in schools, but not look at guns?" Leahy shot back in response. "An interesting concept."

"We are actually studying school safety and how we can ensure our students are safe at school," DeVos responded.

Leahy followed up with a question at the core of the commission's stated mission, asking whether an 18-year-old high school student should be able to walk into a store and "moments later come out with an AR-15-style gun and hundreds of rounds in ammunition."

DeVos dodged the question, telling Leahy that the topic was "very much a matter for debate."

DeVos' comments contradict the mission statement of the commission. The Education Department's website says the commission was "charged with quickly providing meaningful and actionable recommendations to keep students safe at school," including a "discussion on minimum age for firearms purchases."

Later in the testimony, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, asked DeVos if the commission was looking into how other countries protect students from school shootings, including gun laws and mental illness treatment. DeVos, ignoring the question, said the commission is focused on where a "culture of violence comes from." She also said the commission is studying school discipline policies to find ways to identify students who may pose a threat to their schools.

Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the department, clarified after the hearing that "the secretary and the commission continue to look at all issues the president asked the committee to study and are focused on making recommendations that the agencies, states and local communities can implement," the New York Times reports.

"It's important to note that the commission cannot create or amend current gun laws — that is the Congress's job," Hill added.

Since the Valentine's Day shooting in Parkland, Republicans have assigned blame to Obama-era school discipline policies, video games, untreated mental health issues, the media, and most recently, pornography as a potential culprit for this American spate of violence. While there's no final word on what causes the bloodshed, ignoring the role guns play in perpetuating violence across the nation is majorly problematic.

Is arming teachers the answer?
Salon Talks hosts a discussion on whether the NRA's suggestion of arming teachers would actually help during school shootings.

Trump: A new Reagan? Or a new Chamberlain?

AP/Getty/Salon

This piece originally appeared on The Globalist..

Donald Trump often claims that his recent predecessors, both Republicans and Democrats, didn’t have what it takes to stand up to America’s foes and its unscrupulous trading partners abroad.

In the saga according to Trump, he alone is willing and able to negotiate on behalf of the United States from a position of strength.

In reality, Trump is emerging as the worst appeaser since Britain’s Neville Chamberlain. Trump is weakening the United States, emboldening its enemies and, possibly, shattering the world order.

A hedge fund manager talking to his rich investors two years ago was surprised to hear from them that they were looking forward to the Trump Administration. Their line of reasoning? Trump was going to be a “second Ronald Reagan.”

Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize

These days, Trump supporters are drawing this parallel all the time. A group of Republicans in Congress nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize the moment the possible — and now cancelled — summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un was announced. This showed, they declared emphatically, that Trump, like Reagan was achieving “peace through strength.”

Bret Bauer, the chief political anchor at Fox News, sees remarkable similarities with the Gipper. In particular, with regard to how Reagan dealt with Soviet Russia and how Trump is handling North Korea.

To separate fact from fiction and wishful thinking from the historical record, one should remember that Reagan called the Soviet Union “the Evil Empire” and initiated massive rearmament. He supported the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to make the Soviet occupation more costly. And he announced his Star Wars program to develop a system to shoot down Soviet ballistic missiles.

It was his relentless pressure, not any spineless soft balling and cuddling up, that brought Gorbachev to the negotiating table. The rest is history: Perestroika, economic reforms and liberalization in the Soviet Union were followed by the collapse of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe and German reunification. Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union itself disintegrated and communism was no more.

Of course, this sketch of how things unfolded is somewhat simplistic. It ignores the massive economic and ethnic pressures within the USSR and the restive mood in Europe, as well as the generational change in the Soviet leadership. Still, conventional wisdom has it that Reagan won the Cold War.

A very firm hand

But he certainly dealt with the Soviet Union with a very firm hand, the opposite of what can be said about Trump’s stance toward Russia. It is interesting to note that Luke Harding, in his book “Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House,” has gone farthest in substantiating charges against Trump being the subject of Russian blackmailing.

As the author and Guardian reporter points out, even though Trump likes to sue everybody and goes up against books presenting an unfavorable view of him by trying to prohibit publication, no such actions have been filed against Mr. Harding or his publisher.

Trump followers want to let bygones be bygones. What matters, they say, is to look ahead. And that is precisely where they see important parallels between Reagan then and Trump now.

Trump, his followers suggest, is using the Reagan approach toward North Korea. He attacked Kim Jong Un in a series of abusive tweets and threatened to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons. And, wouldn’t you believe it, the North Koreans appeared at the negotiating table in no time to consider nuclear disarmament.

A second Chamberlain

However, this is an illusion. Not only is Trump not a second Reagan, he may be a second Neville Chamberlain. The man who served as UK Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940 is (in)famous for claiming to bring “peace in our time” to Europe. In reality, he gave Hitler a free hand to invade his neighbors, thus making World War II inevitable.

Much like Chamberlain in Munich, Trump is susceptible to pressure. North Koreans have already said that they won’t disarm because they don’t want to suffer regime change on the model of Libya.

Trump immediately disavowed any intention of removing Kim, a bloody and repressive dictator. Instead, he promised that North Koreans will be “very rich” and Kim will be very happy once he makes a deal with Trump.

Similarly, Trump threatened a trade war with China and imposed tariffs, but the moment the Chinese bit back, Trump got cold feet. So much for standing up for principle and achieving trade deals for the United States that are tough on other nations.

A vague promise by Beijing to buy more U.S. oil and agricultural products put the trade war on hold. The promise to bring back manufacturing jobs and reduce the annual trade deficit with China by $200 billion has been largely forgotten.

It’s a reflexive appeaser’s move. Chamberlain had hoped that, once he gave in to Hitler’s demands and allowed him to grab the Sudetenland, Hitler would be satisfied. Chamberlain was driven by the memories of World War I and desire to avoid another murderous conflict.

He was probably naive, but at least he meant well. He did not realize the immense depth of the murderous impulses of the Nazi dictator.

No excuse

Trump has no such excuse. He doesn’t care about peace or America’s strength. All he cares about is self-aggrandizement. That is why people he negotiates with find it so easy to play him.

As long as Trump’s ego is stroked and he is allowed to walk away looking like a winner and a strong leader, Trump doesn’t mind giving up ground on issues that matter. He abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, walked away from the Iran nuclear deal and moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem in order to appear decisive. In reality, all these flashy gestures harmed the interests of the United States.

We are likely to see many deals struck by Trump in the coming months in which he will claim victory while in reality agreeing to close his eyes to more serious problems. Trump couldn’t care less. As long as he gets cosmetic concessions, he will claim that he has won big.

This will be tantamount to appeasement. Because in the meantime North Korea, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel and others happily operate in the shadows of Trump’s vanity and pomposity.

Happy to exploit a truly needy U.S. leader, they will pursue their nefarious objectives. In the process, they are not only destabilizing the world. Their actions may also possibly lead to the first major military conflict since the end of World War II.

 

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