During the Obama years, one of the ways the White House presented itself to the public was through a dedicated in-house photographer named Pete Souza, who would post all manner of glamour shots of the administration’s doings to social media feeds. The actual White House news photographers weren’t big fans of the arrangement ― let’s face it, the administration’s aim was to cast itself in the best light ― but it left us with some iconic images. (Plus, it allowed MTV News’ Ana Marie Cox and me to make a lot of silly jokes about it over at The Awl.)
Souza, of course, is gone from the White House, and is now repurposing his work as a means to troll the current occupant of the Oval Office. With him has gone his relentless pursuit of a presidential era through the eye of a camera lens. Yes, the Trump administration has its own Flickr feed, and generates its own photo-opportunities. At some point, the Trump White House could find a similar photographic groove. But Souza’s self-consciously artful approach created an interesting prism through which to view a presidential era ― a sort of sidelong glance at that world that we’re now lacking.
Or so I thought. Recently, New York magazine’s Brian Feldman suggested that one could find this intriguing prism again, simply by looking at the Instagram geotag for President Donald Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. So I did, and discovered a pretty unique universe there, one that mirrors the oddness of our times. So join me now, in a journey into Trump’s gilded world.
Welcome to beautiful Mar-a-Lago, Marjorie Merriweather Post’s one-time Palm Beach haven, now rechristened the “Southern White House” by Trump. That’s a re-rechristening, actually: Trump first referred to it as the “Winter White House,” but he’s been going there a lot more often. The resort will soon close for the summer ― and it’s looking like it may be Bedminster, New Jersey’s, turn in the barrel for hosting Trump getaways.
So, my working theory of Mar-a-Lago is that it’s basically a weird, bubble universe like “Portlandia,” except it’s focused on 1980s anomie-and-bonhomie rather than post-1990s hipster wish-fulfillment schemes. (The odd thing is that Kyle MacLachlan is the mayor of both universes.)
Also, many of the partiers at Mar-a-Lago are reminiscent of Max Greenfield’s pre-housing crash mortgage broker character from “The Big Short,” but here in this Palm Beach hideaway, they are all somehow unscathed from the ravages of that world. Here, the only bubbles that have popped are in champagne flutes, and the only subprime commodity appears to be the food.
The caption reads: “The architecture, sculpture, planning and craftsmanship that went into Mar-a-Lago in 1924 could not be duplicated today.” So, it’s not all bad news.
One thing you can say about Mar-a-Lago is that it’s a good substitute for the “Infinity Mirrors” show that’s been all the rage at the Hirshorn Museum in Washington. (To be fair, Mar-a-Lago is also a lot easier to get into than the exhibit.)
Graydon Carter really nailed it with that “short-fingered vulgarian” remark, huh? (Kinda makes up for The Waverly Inn.)
Remember when Mark Halperin was so excited to ride in Trump’s helicopter? It’s only a matter of time before he’s teaching sunrise Pilates at Trump’s resort.
I recently read a tweet that attested to the existence of rompers being made for men. At first glance, that’s what I thought we were dealing with in the image above, but thankfully not. Nevertheless, if the rompers-for-men fad takes off, Mar-a-Lago will almost certainly be Ground Zero.
As you can see, Mar-a-Lago attendees can be pretty mixed on Trump. Still, what I’d point out is that you should have an innate distrust of any organization that hands out a “Six Star” award. Five stars is more than enough, man. Don’t be a try-hard, American Academy of Hospitality Sciences.
Obvious Horcrux.
Mar-a-Lago’s sinks are from Kohler’s “A Bit Much If I’m Being Honest” line of designer bathroom fixtures.
This will be a sight Mar-a-Lago goers will rarely see if Trump gets the $1 billion cuts to the Coast Guard budget that he wants.
Melania, leaving him hanging.
The baby’s face says it all: “Thank God I’m too young to read ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’”
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it seem like Trump’s two adult sons are a Las Vegas act looking for a casino to call home? I have a strong feeling about it, anyway. But is it a lounge act? A terrible magic show? Maybe it’s just Don Jr. and the other one shooting super-soakers at each other. (I’d pay to see that.) The exact contours of the future Trump Sons Vegas show are maddeningly hard to conjure in my imagination, and I think the reason is that we’ll all probably be dead soon.
Speaking of, here’s the obligatory mention of the famous “unsecured phone who dis” moment that so captured the imagination of a Mar-a-Lago paying member, who maybe should have thought whether this was the sort of thing about which one should be enthusiastic.
Meanwhile, let’s check in with The Resistance, which apparently use the Mar-a-Lago geotag to riddle its Insta feed with memes and anti-Trump content.
Mmmm. Yes, this will be the meme that finally brings Trump down.
I think what this image is getting at is that Trump promised to stay in D.C. and keep his nose to the grindstone, but now he’s jetting off for near-weekly getaways. Just your typically subtle content from user “@impeach_dictator_in_chief.”
Guys, if you’re going to make a “Hangover” joke (circa 2009), then you have to get the casting right. Paul Ryan is the Ed Helms character, and Mike Pence would be the Zach Galifianakis analogue. Steve Bannon, like it or not, would be the Bradley Cooper ― but this is obviously a dated photo now that Jared Kushner has taken over.
Well, that’ll show him. Let’s get back to Mar-a-Lago, now.
Trump conducts a lot of important work while at Mar-a-Lago, including what he sees as his chief duty: promoting his business, Mar-a-Lago. But here he is making his best, “I’m-stuck-with-my-second-choice-of-national-security-adviser” face.
Perhaps this is Trump receiving that 10-minute Cliff’s Notes version of Far East foreign policy from Chinese President Xi Jinping that convinced the president that solving the thorny issue of North Korea was actually “not so easy.” Take that, Holiday Inn Express!
And here’s Trump abruptly changing his mind about the Syrian conflict and hoisting a bunch of cruise missiles at the country in a totally “Jacksonian” move.
Sometimes, the actual president and first lady come to Mar-a-Lago as well.
When the nurse calls your elderly parent “sweetie,” she may be doing it to be kind, but using “elderspeak” like this actually can be quite harmful, according to research published in Oxford University’s The Gerontologist.
Elderspeak is characterized by a slow speech rate, exaggerated intonation, elevated pitch and volume, the intentional use of simple vocabulary and reduced grammatical complexity, changes in affect, pronoun substitutions (“how are we today?” instead of “how are you?” for example), diminutives, and repetition. And the bottom line is: Elderly people, especially those with cognitive issues, really don’t respond well to it.
Research has shown that older adults with cognitive impairments who are spoken to in this manner are less likely to comply and do what is being asked of them and/or they will react negatively, usually by becoming agitated and yelling.
The study by St. Mary’s College of California researcher Anna Corwin examined 100 hours of recorded interactions between Catholic nuns, who were cognitively impaired and between the ages of 81 to 92, and their caregivers, who were younger nuns.
The data were collected as part of a seven-year study of the linguistic communication that contributes to successful aging in a Catholic convent infirmary where the caregivers did not engage in elderspeak. The caregivers instead used conversational tones, made jokes, told narratives, and essentially, Corwin told The Huffington Post, treated the care recipient as a “meaningful [person] whether they could understand them or not.”
Corwin, the professor in linguistic anthropology, lived in a midwestern convent for 10 months, observing the nuns as they cared for their peers with cognitive impairment. She said that almost none of the caregivers used elderspeak — ever. She surmises that the nuns’ choice not to use elderspeak “has to do with the way that they understand what it means to age.”
She told HuffPost that the nuns are not afraid of physical decline. Corwin considers the use of elderspeak to be part of our cultural disrespect for the older members of society. “We devalue people who are no longer productive in the capitalistic sense of the word,” she said.
When elderspeak is used in a caregiving situation, she said, it distorts the patient’s self-assessment and triggers the sense that they are no longer competent or valued.
Her work builds on previous research that found how older people are spoken to matters. A 2015 study documented how using elderspeak negatively impacts patients’ sense of well-being.
Kristine Williams, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, trains staff in nursing homes to use less elderspeak — including terms of endearment such as “honey,” “dearie” and “sweetie.”
These words, Williams told the Huffington Post, may be well-intended and meant to show kindness and affection. But what they actually do is “send a message to older adults that they’re not competent,” she said.
Many nurses’ first jobs are in nursing homes. “They overhear the more experienced nurses talk like this and pick it up that way,” she said.
“We try and get them to sit back and take the perspective of the older adult,” she added, speaking of the education classes she teaches for experienced nurses.
In an interview with AARP, Williams said that caregivers are often unaware that they’re speaking in this way and are surprised when they see videos of themselves in caregiving situations.
“They think that it’s showing that they care and that it will improve communication,” she said. But it’s not and it won’t, she added.
And of course it’s not just nurses who need to be reminded that older people aren’t all hard-of-hearing or mentally incapable of understanding what’s going on with them medically. Doctors who speak to the caregiver and act like their elderly patient isn’t even in the room could use some reeducation as well, she noted.
Taking it one step further, maybe we are due for a cultural change how we see and regard those in their 60s and 70s. Anyone for stamping out those “adorable grandparents” memes?
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Hold up. Wait, what? Rob Lowe is the new KFC colonel?
Guess so. The fast food company announced Friday that it has selected the actor to become the latest in a long list of colonels ― a group that has included comedians like Darrell Hammond and Norm Macdonald in the past.
In his first commercial for the company, Lowe dons an astronaut suit and proclaims his intent to blast a new chicken filet sandwich called the Zinger into space for some reason.
“The time has come to explore beyond our known horizons to push KFC’s spicy, crispy chicken sandwich to new heights,” he says.
“Sure, there’ll be questions,” he continues. “Like why.”
We don’t really have many questions, but Lowe did put out a statement on Friday that was rather serious considering the circumstances.
“My grandfather was the head of the Ohio chapter of the National Restaurant Association in the 1960s and took me to meet Colonel Harland Sanders when I was a kid,” Lowe said. “It was a big deal.”
He added, “I thought this would be a nice homage to both Colonel Sanders and to my grandfather.”
Anyway, it’s a commercial for a chicken sandwich featuring a celebrity. You get it.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
In a heartbreaking video, gay Russians living in the U.S. share testimonials of queer men who say they have been detained and tortured in Chechnya.
Produced by Human Rights First, the clip features personal accounts of Chechen men who claim to have been abused at the hands of local officials in the Russian republic. Gay Russian asylees who are currently living stateside read the disturbing accounts, which officials said were compiled from reports from Novaya Gazeta, as well as The Guardian, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Pink News.
“They stripped me naked. One filmed me on his cell phone,” one man says in the video, which was posted to Human Rights First’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon and can be viewed above. “Three of them beat me up. They kicked me, broke my jaw.” Adds another, “They attached the wires of the stun gun to me. It’s very painful.”
Human Rights First Advocacy Counsel Shawn Gaylord said his organization aimed to “drive action” and “help achieve justice” with the video, which was produced in partnership with the Russian-Speaking American LGBT Association, or RUSA LGBT.
“The stories coming from those lucky enough to survive and make it out are harrowing. We felt that by sharing them we could put this nightmare in perspective for the many people that have only read about it in a newspaper,” he said in an email. “The world needs to act.”
The abuse allegations have been dominating international headlines all month, after Novaya Gazeta reported April 1 that at least 100 Chechen men had been detained “in connection with their nontraditional sexual orientation.” Three of those men, the report continued, were believed to have been killed. An April 4 Novaya Gazeta article doubled down on those claims, with a source telling the publication that the Muslim-majority region’s anti-LGBTQ efforts include concentration camps.
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called for an investigation into the reports, while Ellen DeGeneres, Billy Eichner, Andy Cohen and other celebrities have spoken out against the alleged violence. Still, the Kremlin itself has denied the claims, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, reportedly dismissing the controversy as “a distortion of reality, merely a defamation.”
For more ways to combat bigotry, check out the Queer Voices newsletter.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Chaffetz, Cummings Seek Answers From Trump On His Business' Profits From Foreign Governments
Posted in: Today's ChiliWASHINGTON ― The House Oversight & Government Reform Committee is seeking more information from President Donald Trump and his business about how he plans to donate profits from foreign governments to the U.S. treasury.
Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee’s chairman, and Elijah Cummings (R-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, sent a letter to the Trump Organization’s lawyer Sheri Dillon on Friday requesting details on how Trump will sort and return these foreign profits to the treasury.
Notably, the bipartisan letter comes days after Chaffetz announced plans not to seek re-election and to possibly resign his seat in the middle of his term. Chaffetz faced intense criticism for his early refusal to hold hearings on and request information from Trump about his business and conflicts of interest.
The letter demands all information related to how the company plans to sort and return foreign government profits to the government, what Trump properties or entities are going to return said profits and whether the company plans to claim these donations to the treasury as tax deductions.
On Jan. 17, Trump held a press conference to announce his plans to place his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, in charge of his Trump Organization while maintaining his full ownership stake in all of his companies and properties. His decision to break with decades of presidential precedent and not divest or fully separate himself from his business opened him up to a vast array of conflicts of interest.
Additionally, ethics experts and constitutional lawyers questioned whether he would run afoul of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. This clause forbids government officials, including the president, from receiving any gift, payment or title of nobility from a foreign state.
Dillon, a tax lawyer at the firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, explained that while she and other lawyers had determined the Emoluments Clause did not apply to Trump, his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., would divert profits from foreign governments to the U.S. treasury to avoid any appearance of impropriety.
“The Constitution does not require President-elect Trump to do anything here,” she said in January. “But, just like with conflicts of interest, he wants to do more than what the Constitution requires. So, President-elect Trump has decided, and we are announcing today, that he is going to voluntarily donate all profits from foreign governments made to his hotel to the United States treasury.”
Neither Dillon nor Trump’s business have explained which of Trump’s businesses will actually return foreign profits to the treasury. The only publicly known information is that the Trump Organization will return said profits from his D.C. hotel on an annual basis at the end of the year. Are other Trump hotels supposed to return their foreign profits, too?
This became a hot topic after his new D.C. hotel saw a huge uptick in business after his election. Hotel management pitched foreign dignitaries on staying at the hotel to curry favor with the president. One diplomat told the Washington Post, “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel … so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’”
The governments of Kuwait, Bahrain and Azerbaijan moved annual parties to the Trump hotel from other venues. Saudi Arabia paid for its U.S. lobbying firm to rent at least one room at Trump’s hotel after the inauguration. A Turkish business lobbying group close to the Turkish government is holding its annual conference with Turkish government officials present at the Trump hotel in May.
Chaffetz and Cummings want to know how the Trump Organization is calculating the profits from these events and hotel room reservations. The average profit margin for a luxury hotel was between 6 to 15 percent in 2013. Where does the Trump D.C. hotel fall in that range?
The hotel is not the only potential landing place for foreign government profits. According to USA Today, the Trump Organization has sold 58 real estate properties for about $90 million since the election. The majority of those sales have gone to limited liability companies that mask the identity of the owner.
The largest such sale, first reported by Mother Jones, was a $15.9 million Manhattan condo sale to the Chinese-American businesswoman Xiao Yan Chen. Chen just happens to run a consulting business to help U.S. firms gain influence in China.
While Dillon argues that the Emoluments Clause does not apply to the president, ethics experts and constitutional lawyers vehemently disagree. The Trump Organization is currently being sued by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal ethics watchdog; Restaurant Opportunity Partners, a nonprofit industry association; and Jill Phaneuf, an event planner, for allegedly violating the clause.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Trump Says Terror Attack Will 'Probably Help' Marine Le Pen In French Elections
Posted in: Today's ChiliU.S. President Donald Trump waded into France’s presidential election on Friday, tweeting that he expected the killing of a policeman in central Paris to have an impact on Sunday’s vote.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting late on Thursday of a French policeman on the Champs Elysees by a French national who lived in Paris.
“Another terrorist attack in Paris. The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!” Trump said on Twitter.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump said he thought the attack would “probably help” Le Pen. While both Trump and the White House made it clear that he was not endorsing Le Pen, he told the AP she would be “the candidate who is “strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France.”
The attack prompted far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen to say on Friday that France should reinstate border checks and expel foreigners who are on the watch lists of intelligence services.
Le Pen, who has campaigned on an anti-European Union, anti-immigration platform, was the only major French candidate who backed Republican Trump in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.
Trump ran for the White House on a pledge to get tough on immigration and his administration has imposed restrictions including a controversial ban, stalled in U.S. courts, on travelers from Muslim majority nations.
In his election campaign, Trump seized on the last year’s Brexit vote in the United Kingdom as an example of disillusioned voters rising up against the political establishment and forged a friendship with Nigel Farage, a leading campaigner for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.
On Thursday, former U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with a different French candidate, Emmanuel Macron, a pro-EU centrist.
Macron is leading most opinion polls for the election’s first round on Sunday and is expected to contest a second-round run-off with Le Pen. Obama’s spokesman said the former U.S. president, who is popular in France, was not making a formal endorsement.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Oprah is the queen of all queens and among the most magical of black women. This, we know.
But at a press event in New York on Tuesday ― in promotion of her new film “The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks” ― Oprah stepped into a room filled with all black women reporters, myself included, and totally lost her cool. And THAT, we didn’t expect.
“When has this ever happened?” Oprah asked all of the women of color in the room. “This is a story in itself!”
To our delight, she broke into a little dance and belted out “Black Girl Magic.” Oprah insisted on taking a group picture that she posted to her personal Instagram page and she live-streamed the interview on her Facebook page.
I recorded some of these magical moments (for the sole purpose of re-watching them for eternity, obviously):
In preparing to be starstruck, the journalists in the room hadn’t considered that a black woman who has broken every glass ceiling would be so taken back by the moment of solidarity. It was a scene that reinforced the power of representation as a group of young black women journalists not only got to meet but interview the woman who helped to pave the way for black female storytellers everywhere.
TMZ caught up with the media mogul on Thursday and asked her specifically about her thoughts on Facebook Live and its effectiveness in media and communication today.
Oprah praised the feature and referenced Tuesday’s press event and why she wanted to share it live on social media.
“I love the fact that we can connect, like, instantly” Oprah told TMZ. “I’ve never been in a room where there were all these beautiful black women who didn’t know each other who all showed up at a junket from various news organizations. I walked into the room and every single person was an African American woman and it was so damn cool! So I just started using Facebook live right there.”
You can read more about the film and our interview with Oprah here, which goes into detail about why she wanted to bring to light the experiences of another black woman who helped change the world.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” premieres on HBO on Saturday, April 22.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Steve Ballmer spent years at Microsoft chasing money for the tech giant to add to its bottom line, but now he’s devoted to following the money the US government spends. After his retirement and conversations with his wife about what to do next, Ballm…
The hacker who uses her wizard powers to get rich by manipulating stocks is a tired Hollywood trope. But that doesn’t mean some hackers don’t dream about making the fantasy come true, or that the ridiculous vulnerabilities necessary to facilitate suc…
Sony has eSports-tailored PlayStation 4 controllers, but aside from that, the gaming juggernaut hasn’t made any major changes to the gamepad that shipped with the PS4. But as a Japanese promo for the recent Parappa the Rapper re-issue, the company ma…
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.