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Trump's Traveling Road Show

Donald Trump moved his spectacle of the revolving door to his potential cabinet picks to his golf course in New Jersey this weekend, shutting down the Lincoln Tunnel in both directions Friday night causing delays of more than an hour as his motorcade passed by.

While that may not be of interest to anyone who doesn't live in NY or New Jersey, other issues of concern to the entire nation are glossed over as Trump deflects attention from them by causing a distraction. Latest example: The public would rather talk about his tweet criticizing the cast of Hamilton for what it said to Mike Pence than his willful blindness to the danger of his global conflicts of interest.

Another Trump distraction: Melania and Barron will stay in New York at least until June so the 10 year old doesn't have to be inconvenienced by changing schools mid-year. He can go to school in Antarctica for all I care. But what does matter is who will bear responsibility for the exorbitant extra security cost and the inconvenience to New Yorkers (and tourists)? The public should be demanding Trump bear the expense. And since New York City intends to ask the feds for reimbursement, this concerns all taxpayers. [More...]

This interview of Melania in Parenting Magazine when her son was 6 is revealing. Shorter version: Barron has his own floor in Trump Tower, Donald Trump never changed a diaper or put him to bed and that's fine with her, and she praised her son for his creativity which he expressed by drawing on the walls of his playroom with crayons, saying they could always repaint. (It strikes me as tone deaf a comment as Marie Antoinette saying "Let them eat cake." )

Her interviews make it sound like she's raising Barron by herself -- her husband is always working or traveling and she has no nanny (just a chef and personal assistant). But she doesn't really raise Barron by herself. Her parents live at Trump Tower or nearby (they still own a home in Slovenia but only visit a few times a year).

Among the incomers who built the town’s industrial base were Viktor and Amalija Knavs and their daughters Ines and Melanija. Businessman Viktor dealt in cars or spare parts or both – no one seems quite sure. Amalija was a pattern cutter at the Jutranjka childrenswear factory and may at some point have gained a promotion to pattern designer.

They lived in a five-storey block in the Naselje Heroja Maroka area. Later, Melanija and her older sister went to high school in Ljubljana, 60 miles away, and their parents built themselves a white villa in the pretty hills above the town, far away from the hourly clatter-past of the train. They still own the house but are rarely there, living instead in New York and helping look after Donald and Melania’s son, Barron.

The gist of the articles is that her parents don't speak English and taught Barron to speak Slovenic to be able to communicate with him.

Her son speaks Slovenian fluently—he uses it to speak with his grandparents, who have immigrated to New York and live near them in Trump Tower—but for Melania, Slovenia represents a relatively short and distant period of her past that she quickly outgrew.

...They spend much of the year in the US helping Melania raise her son with Trump, Barron - who is nine years old. Amalja cooks Slovenian food for her grandson and speaks to him in Slovenian so that he learns his mother's language.

And there's the issue of her insisitence none of her beauty is enhanced. But a former judge in one of her beauty contests tells a reporter she was flat-chested teen when she competed (at 16 or so.) Her modelling photos from that time show a flat chest. Now she's a very buxom woman. Her former roommate says he remembers she once she left for two weeks and returned more endowed, and that she discussed it with him on her return. Maybe she's telling the truth that she has had no plastic surgery and opposes injections such as Botox. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but I'm skeptical, looking at as many photos as I have.

Almost every article I've read makes a point of saying Melania's a very nice and genuine person. I have no reason to doubt that. She clearly takes an enormous amount of time attending to her beauty and wardrobe. Almost every photo is flattering, and sexy. And she does smile in many of them. But she seems as prone to self-inflation as her husband.

This article about reporters being flown to a meet her and disputing that she was a "top" model is odd. And it's curious that the mayor of her small town of 5,000 people went to school with her but can't remember her, saying as did many others interviewed, she didn't stand out.

The mayor of Melania Trump’s hometown is embarrassed. At 47, Srečko Ocvirk is just a year older than the world’s most famous Slovenian. But even though he was a schoolmate of hers, the mayor of Sevnica said: “I have to be honest, I cannot place her.

On a tour of Sevnica, a pretty medieval town that clings to vine-clad hills rising from the Sava river, it quickly becomes clear that the young Melanija Knavs did not stand out from the collective consciousness of the time as someone who would rise to global fame. “In the socialist days we were all the same,” said a woman in the same age bracket as the 46-year-old.

One article says she was baptized, another says she wasn't. The Univision article says:
Viktor, Melania's father, was a member of the Communist Party. Several neighbors agree that he joined more out of convenience than conviction. That ensured fewer problems with the party after his daughter was baptized in a Catholic church, like many of the family's relatives.
The Guardian reports she and her sister were not baptized due to her father's atheism.
In line with their father's officially atheist Communist beliefs, Melania and her sister were not baptized and did not make their first holy communion with the other children, a decision which did not escape Catholic relatives.

She told Parenting Magazine her mother was "in the fashion industry." Technically, that is true, I suppose, but it's an odd way to describe someone who worked in a state-owned factory cutting patterns, even if she was "promoted to pattern designer" at some point.

My point is who knows why she's not moving to the White House? Every article about her and every interview with her and people from her hometown, seem to vary in detail just a little too much for comfort. She hasn't said why she's not moving to the White House. Donald is speaking for her. And whatever reason Trump gives for anything, including this, deserves very close scrutiny, especially given the increased security costs, redirection of law enforcement personnel from their ordinary duties, and the traffic nightmares and disruption of life it will cause to New Yorkers and visitors. The job of the police should be to protect the entire community, not just two people in it.

< We're Off to See the Wizard (and the Children of Mussolini) | Trump's First 100 Days: An Inauspicious Start >
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  • Display: Sort:
    The impending occupants (5.00 / 1) (#9)
    by leap on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 03:00:48 PM EST
    of our White House will be so different from who lives there now.

    An illegal one, at that.

    I'm going to miss the Obamas so much.

    Jeralyn, you forgot the flagrant lie (5.00 / 2) (#12)
    by Towanda on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 03:55:55 PM EST
    of Melania Trump's claim to have a college degree.

    That claim was removed from her/his websites only after someone in media actually committed an act of journalism and found it to be a flagrant lie -- much like the far later finding about her lying about her arrival here, her employment prior to having a work visa, etc. . . .

     

    Has anybody (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by Ga6thDem on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 07:52:29 PM EST
    watched the film of the alt right leader Richard Spencer where the members say Sig Hiel Trump? This crap is getting scary.

    New Yorkers (none / 0) (#1)
    by Ga6thDem on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 06:37:12 AM EST
    already detest them. I guess it will just be ratcheted up more with them causing more problems in the city.

    Do you have similar objections (none / 0) (#2)
    by itscookin on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 09:51:28 AM EST
    to Michelle's mother helping with Sasha and Malia?

    Where do you see an objection voiced (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by ruffian on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 11:11:41 AM EST
    in Jeralyn's reporting about the family? He objection is having to pay the expense of protecting the family (whoever is considered part of it) in D.C as well as in NY if they are not going to all be living in D.C. most of the time.

    Parent
    Yup (5.00 / 2) (#4)
    by Militarytracy on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 12:07:48 PM EST
    I think it is wonderful that Barron Trump gets to spend everyday with his immigrant grandparents and is bilingual thanks to them.

    The insanity and expense of securing Trump Tower though? Will Staten Island vote Trump again after this?

    I'm fine if immigrant grandparents live in the White House.

    Parent

    Staten Island? (none / 0) (#6)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 12:27:58 PM EST
    Staten Island (aka Richmond County) ... (none / 0) (#7)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 12:53:42 PM EST
    ... is a mostly white Republican working class enclave that's one of the five boroughs comprising the City of New York, which Trump won by a rather decisive margin. I seriously doubt that any inconvenience suffered by their wealthier neighbors in Manhattan due to Trump's presence is going to strike a sympathetic chord with that borough's residents.

    Parent
    My thoughts exactly. (none / 0) (#8)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 01:08:37 PM EST
    I don't have a problem with her parents (5.00 / 2) (#5)
    by Jeralyn on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 12:25:06 PM EST
    living close to them and helping. Nothing I wrote remotely suggests that. If you continue to misrepresent what I wrote, your comments will not be welcome here.

    Parent
    If you live in Trump Tower (none / 0) (#10)
    by smott on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 03:14:11 PM EST
    Condo, apt, whatever, do you now have to go through Secret Svc Security every time you go out/in?

    I expect there to be Trump protestors camped around the building pretty much constantly too.

    5th Ave/surrounding streets will now have to be effectively closed at least on weekends when Donald is there, maybe full time if Melania lives there?

    For 4-8 years? That's a damn big disruption for tax payers to pay for.

    I'm prepared to see something (5.00 / 2) (#11)
    by Militarytracy on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 03:20:33 PM EST
    Like the Wallstreet protest go down, to include protesters being jailed, water cannon, told they stink, etc. Big mess

    Parent
    Trump costs NYC $1 million per day (none / 0) (#13)
    by Towanda on Mon Nov 21, 2016 at 04:04:28 PM EST
    for extra police for security, according to CNN.

    Other sources put the cost of two full Secret Service staffs 24/7 in both NYC and DC for the Trump family in the multimillions.

    Insightful, in depth look (none / 0) (#15)
    by TrevorBolder on Wed Nov 23, 2016 at 04:51:21 PM EST
    At what is the Anti Donald, Jared Kushner

    http://tinyurl.com/jpkrthu

    Forbes interview

    Kushner almost never speaks publicly-his chats with FORBES mark the first time he has talked about the Trump campaign or his role in it-but interviews with him and a dozen people around him and the Trump camp lead to an inescapable fact: The quiet, enigmatic young mogul delivered the presidency to the most fame-hungry, bombastic candidate in American history.

    "It's hard to overstate and hard to summarize Jared's role in the campaign," says billionaire Peter Thiel, the only significant Silicon Valley figure to publicly back Trump. "If Trump was the CEO, Jared was effectively the chief operating officer."