https://youtu.be/h_0NdjvH3-4

Dear Commons Community,

The second day of a brutal attack by President Donald Trump on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reveals that his worries about a prison sentence are a “trigger” for him, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said yesterday.

Trump’s “days-long tailspin” and his “two-part smear” of Pelosi expose Trump’s “soft underbelly,” Wallace said in her introduction to  Deadline: White House.

“Trump’s soft underbelly has been exposed, apparently talk of being sent to prison is his real trigger. For a 2nd straight day the president is ranting about Nancy Pelosi saying she’d rather see him serve time in prison for his alleged crimes than be impeached.”

Trump attacked Pelosi for the second straight day Friday, tweeting on his way back to the U.S. from Europe that she is “disgusting” and a “disgrace” after Pelosi reportedly told Democrats that she would rather see Trump in prison than impeached.

On Thursday, Trump ranted about Pelosi in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham as the two sat in front of the graves of World War II heroes on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. He called her a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person.”

“In the category of ‘you couldn’t make it up if you tried,’” Wallace played a tape of Sean Hannity saying on Fox News that “wanting a political opponent locked up” happens in “banana republics.” Wallace followed with a tape of Trump calling for his presidential rival Hillary Clinton to be locked up. 

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a guest on Wallace’s program, characterized Pelosi’s prison comment as using Trump’s own “model” to hit back at him. “It’s like if you’re a fighter and a guy uses your punch because he knows how effective that can be,” Sharpton said.

“The last thing [Trump] needs is for people to start picking up in the street, ‘Hey, he should be in jail, not impeached,’ because he knows how he worked that kind of craziness in 2016,” Sharpton said. 

Panelist Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI official, noted that there’s suddenly a “new ‘I’ word, and it’s ‘imprisonment,’ not ‘impeachment.’”

As with most bullies, Trump indeed has a soft belly!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Last week my wife and I visited France and had the privilege of going to the American D-Day Memorial sites in Normandy – Utah Beach, Point du Hoc, Omaha Beach and the American Memorial Cemetery where there are more than 9,000 American casualties buried.

Ever Forward is the bronze statue that sits at the entrance to Omaha Beach.  

The Obelisk at Point du Hoc is in memory of the American Rangers who made up the first advance unit and who were to scale the cliffs between Utah and Omaha Beaches.

The Memorial Cemetery is a place of serenity with its thousands of crosses.  At 5:00 pm every evening, taps are played as the American flags are lowered.

I especially remember my two uncles John and Anthony DeMichele, both of whom were in Normandy in World War II.

Tony

Ever Forward

Point du Hoc

American Memorial Cemetery

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump’s visit to London is being marked by pomp and protests.  On Monday there was all the pomp of meeting Queen Elizabeth, Buckingham Palace, a state dinner, and  the Queen’s Guards.  Yesterday was a different story as thousands protested Trump’s visit in Trafalgar Square complete with a Baby Trump balloon.

The official portion of the visit began as the White House had hoped, with the president and first lady Melania Trump welcomed at Buckingham Palace by Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, before receiving a gun salute and reviewing an honor guard in the palace garden.

The queen greeted Trump with a smile and a handshake before leading everyone inside. Trump avoided the breach of protocol last year that marred their first meeting, when the president walked in front of the queen.

The day was capped off by a lavish state banquet, where guests dined on filet of halibut and lamb saddle and sipped Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1990, which retails in the U.S. for between $700 and $800 a bottle, according to wine-searcher.com.

Trump and the queen offered each other toasts that stuck to script, marking their countries’ victory in World War II and touting their shared values.

“On behalf of all Americans, I offer a toast to the eternal friendship of our people, the vitality of our nations and to the long cherished and truly remarkable reign of her majesty, the queen,” the president, wearing a white tie and tails, said while reading from prepared remarks.

The images were broadcast live by cable and broadcast television networks in the U.S., cutting into news coverage that had been dominated by his roiling moves on trade, the ongoing debate about whether congressional Democrats should impeach him and growing scrutiny of the White House’s Middle East peace plan.

But yesterday Trump’s visit was a different story while meeting with ongoing Prime Minister Theresa May, thousands gathered and marched to protest his visit.

Trump downplayed the protests, tweeting that his London visit “is going really well” and saying he has seen only “tremendous crowds of well wishers and people that love our Country.”

The videos above and below capture the tenor of Trump’s visit.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The University of Maine System last Thursday selected former Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy as its next leader.   The 63-year-old Democrat will oversee seven campuses and 30,000 students when he takes over as chancellor on July 1.

A lawyer and former mayor of Stamford, Malloy has never run a university. He transitioned into higher education this spring as a visiting professor at Boston College School of Law.  As reported in the Hartford Courant:

“Education is a calling,” said Malloy at a press conference Thursday morning on the flagship University of Maine campus in Orono after the system’s trustees voted unanimously to appoint him. “[It’s] one of few areas of life, fields of endeavor, allowing you to make transitional, transformational change,” for families for years to come, he said.

Malloy inherits a system struggling with enrollment challenges and a budget shortfall of $3 million for the fiscal year ending in June 2020.

“He’ll face some of the challenges we all face: declining enrollment, state funding challenges and the question of how to continue providing the best high quality and most accessible higher education to the students we collectively serve,” said Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system and Malloy’s close friend.

To offset enrollment dips driven by demographics, the University of Maine has been offering top-performing students from Connecticut and other states steep tuition discounts. The strategy has paid off by drawing a record number of out-of-state students to Orono, helping to stabilize enrollment.

“They’re losing young people,” said University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst. “That’s our problem, too, but they’re losing them at a faster clip. Gov. Malloy has thought a lot about what keeps young people in state and how universities can be cultural and economic centers.”

During his eight years as governor, Malloy was a reliable supporter of UConn. For instance, he helped engineer a deal early in his first term that brought The Jackson Laboratory, a biomedical research facility, to the university’s Farmington campus, with the enticement of a $291 million state grant. However, he also initiated and oversaw the beginning of a controversial consolidation/merger of the Connecticut’s state’s 12 community colleges into one institution, the Community College of Connecticut.

His tenure at Maine will be closely watched. We wish him the best of luck!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Democratic nominee Kirsten Gillebrand scored a couple of points during a Fox News town hall meeting hosted by Chris Wallace.

Wallace asked Gillibrand during the town hall in Dubuque, Iowa, to explain her December 2018 tweet that said: “Our future is: Female, Intersectional. Powered by our belief in one another. And we’re just getting started.”

“We want women to have a seat at the table,” Gillibrand explained.

Wallace interjected: “What about men?”

“They’re already there ― do you not know?” Gillibrand fired back with a laugh. “It’s not meant to be exclusionary, it’s meant to be inclusionary.” 

Another noteworthy moment came when Gillibrand brought up Fox News’ coverage of abortion as states move to impose anti-abortion restrictions. 

“What we’ve created, unfortunately, is a false choice and a false narrative,” Gillibrand said of the network’s abortion coverage. “Chris, I want to talk about the role Fox News plays in this, because it’s a problem. I can tell you before President Trump gave his State of the Union, Fox News talked about infanticide. Infanticide doesn’t exist.”

An annoyed Wallace quickly cut her off, saying that Fox had invited her to the town hall and attacking the network was “not very polite.” 

Gillbrand said she would address her concerns politely and continued, telling the audience that abortion is “a human right, it’s about having bodily autonomy, it’s about being able to control your physical self.”

“So let women make these most personal decisions,” she said.

Good comebacks from Kirsten. 

Although she is trailing badly in the polls, her comments may give her a little boost.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Last Friday, students filled the halls of Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School during a sit-in to call for the school to reaffirm its focus on the arts.  As reported by the New York Times:

“The balance between arts and academics has become increasingly fragile at LaGuardia High School. Long-simmering tensions boiled over on Friday, when hundreds of students staged an hours-long sit-in at the school to protest a perceived dilution of LaGuardia’s arts focus in favor of stricter academic requirements.

Students lined the hallways on two floors of the Lincoln Center area school, holding signs reading, “talented people are left behind” and “permit art,” many of which were later taped to the front door of the office of the principal, Lisa Mars, who took over in 2013. Dr. Mars did not come to school on Friday, but is expected to meet with a group of students on Monday. Some parents are also planning a protest outside the school.

“We’re not here to be the most perfect mathematicians, if I wanted to do that I would have gone to Stuyvesant,” said Eryka Anabell, an 18-year-old senior, referring to New York’s most selective public high school. “I’m here to discover myself as an artist,” she added.   LaGuardia is also a so-called specialized high school, but is the only one of the nine that does not rely on a single standardized test for admission. It considers both auditions and middle school grades when selecting students.

Until now, LaGuardia has avoided the criticism the city’s other specialized high schools are facing for enrolling tiny numbers of black and Hispanic students.

The school’s racial demographics have been consistent since Dr. Mars became principal. About half of the school’s roughly 2,800 students are white, 20 percent are Asian-American and a third are black and Hispanic. All rising high school students in New York City can apply to LaGuardia.

Doug Cohen, a spokesman for the Department of Education, said students’ academic records are considered only after their audition at LaGuardia.

“LaGuardia has a long and proud history of both artistic and academic achievement, and the school’s admission policy has long included these audition and academic requirements,” said Mr. Cohen.   

Dr. Mars declined to comment directly…

…Some LaGuardia students have said Dr. Mars’s push to admit students with higher grades works to disadvantage low-income and minority students who may have natural arts talent but did not attend high-performing middle schools.

“LaGuardia used to be a haven for artistically inclined kids, regardless of their socioeconomic status, regardless if they could do well on a multiple choice test, which is ridiculous to expect an artist to always do amazingly on,” said Nina Grinblatt, an 18-year-old senior.

David Bloomfield, a professor of education at Brooklyn College, said there is a valid argument for focusing more on academics at the school. “While quality arts education is the school’s core mission, it would be hard to attract students and parents without adequate academics,” he said.

But students say Dr. Mars has gone too far by enforcing a decade-old mandate that prospective students must have an 80 average or above in each of their middle school classes to be considered for admission, even if their audition was excellent. Some students and teachers say that rule was sometimes rightfully overruled by previous principals when a student was particularly gifted in the arts.”

This is a good issue that deserves a full hearing and consideration on the part of the principal, the teachers, the students and the parents. 

I tend to lean with my c0lleague, David Bloomfield on this.  Academics should play a part in the determination of admissions.  How much is the critical question?

Tony

Seine River Just After Sunset

Dear Commons Community,

This is our last day in Paris.  Tomorrow (Sunday – June 2^nd) we travel home to New York. 

We spent last evening just at sunset on Pont Des Arts Bridge that overlooks the Seine River.  It is a pedestrian bridge with ample benches to sit and look up and down the river.  The Institut de France is on its Left Bank and the Lourve Museum is on its Right Bank.  It was a beautiful evening and we spent most of our time looking without saying much. 

Today we went to see the Dôme des Invalides, a large church, the tallest in Paris at a height of 351 feet, with the tombs of some of France’s war heroes, most notably Napoleon.  The exterior and interior are quite elaborate with lots of gold, silver, marble, and polished quartzite.  Besides Napoleon whose sarcophagus is about 3o feet high including the base, there are a number of French generals buried here including Ferdinand Foch (World War I), Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque (World War II),  and Joseph Bonaparte (Napolean’s older brother).   One of the most impressive is Louis Lyautey (World War I – Morocco), who has engravings on his sarcophagus in both French and Arabic.  At dinner, we mentioned our visit to the manager of one of the restaurants we frequent and she said without any hesitation:  “They love themselves! Don’t they?”

You cannot visit Paris without a visit to the Eiffel Tower.  We saw it in a park about 200 yards away.

And our visit to France comes to end!

Au revoir!

Tony

Seine River after Sunset

Elaine Looking Down the Seine

Dôme des Invalides

Dôme des Invalides Main Altar

Napolean’s Sargophagus

Louis Lyautey’s Sarcophagus

Eiffel Tower