Melania's trip to shitholes

Washington Post wrote:First lady Melania Trump to make solo trip to Africa



By Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey

First lady Melania Trump will make a solo trip to Africa later this year, she announced Monday.

“This will be my first time traveling to Africa and I am excited to educate myself on the issues facing children throughout the continent, while also learning about its rich culture and history,” the first lady said in a statement.

She added that she plans to use the trip to highlight the humanitarian work and development programs underway in many African countries.

“We are a global society and I believe it is through open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that we have a real opportunity to learn from one another,” the first lady said.

News of the trip was first reported by the Associated Press.

She has frequently accompanied her husband on foreign trips, but the Africa visit will be her first major solo journey abroad as first lady. Last September, she traveled to Toronto, where she led the U.S. delegation at the Invictus Games, a sports competition for wounded veterans, and met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain’s Prince Harry.

Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon has not visited Africa since taking office.

In January, the president prompted a global outcry when he reportedly used the term “shithole countries” when speaking to lawmakers about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. Trump has denied making the remarks, which were roundly criticized by the chairman of the African Union Commission, among others.

A visit in March by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to five African countries was aimed at repairing some of the damage caused by Trump’s comments — but that effort was dealt a blow by Trump’s firing of Tillerson just as the trip was wrapping up.

Further details were not immediately available on the expected itinerary or timing of Melania Trump’s trip.

The first lady has at times drawn attention for delivering a message that diverges from that of her husband.

In June, as outrage over the Trump administration’s family-separation policy was at its peak, Melania Trump made a surprise visit to a shelter for migrant children in Texas, where she told workers she wanted to “help these children be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.”

The words emblazoned on a green jacket she wore that day — “I really don’t care, do u?” — also stirred speculation about her intended message.

And on Monday morning, as her husband was lashing out at his political opponents on Twitter, the first lady was warning about the danger of abusive online behavior at a conference in Maryland on preventing cyberbullying.

Social media “can be used in many positive ways but can also be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly,” she said at the event.

Original Quill wrote:Melania Trump has just touched down on Guana, one of the many African nations that her husband has called 'shithole' countries.  It's not certain why she needs to visit shitholes, or how many showers a day she will take.

Washington Post wrote:First lady Melania Trump to make solo trip to Africa



By Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey

First lady Melania Trump will make a solo trip to Africa later this year, she announced Monday.

“This will be my first time traveling to Africa and I am excited to educate myself on the issues facing children throughout the continent, while also learning about its rich culture and history,” the first lady said in a statement.

She added that she plans to use the trip to highlight the humanitarian work and development programs underway in many African countries.

“We are a global society and I believe it is through open dialogue and the exchanging of ideas that we have a real opportunity to learn from one another,” the first lady said.

News of the trip was first reported by the Associated Press.

She has frequently accompanied her husband on foreign trips, but the Africa visit will be her first major solo journey abroad as first lady. Last September, she traveled to Toronto, where she led the U.S. delegation at the Invictus Games, a sports competition for wounded veterans, and met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain’s Prince Harry.

Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon has not visited Africa since taking office.

In January, the president prompted a global outcry when he reportedly used the term “shithole countries” when speaking to lawmakers about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African nations. Trump has denied making the remarks, which were roundly criticized by the chairman of the African Union Commission, among others.

A visit in March by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to five African countries was aimed at repairing some of the damage caused by Trump’s comments — but that effort was dealt a blow by Trump’s firing of Tillerson just as the trip was wrapping up.

Further details were not immediately available on the expected itinerary or timing of Melania Trump’s trip.

The first lady has at times drawn attention for delivering a message that diverges from that of her husband.

In June, as outrage over the Trump administration’s family-separation policy was at its peak, Melania Trump made a surprise visit to a shelter for migrant children in Texas, where she told workers she wanted to “help these children be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.”

The words emblazoned on a green jacket she wore that day — “I really don’t care, do u?” — also stirred speculation about her intended message.

And on Monday morning, as her husband was lashing out at his political opponents on Twitter, the first lady was warning about the danger of abusive online behavior at a conference in Maryland on preventing cyberbullying.

Social media “can be used in many positive ways but can also be destructive and harmful when used incorrectly,” she said at the event.

Trump has just announced that US foreign aid will henceforth go to nations that are our friends.  Presumably, he means Norway and other white-culture nations.

Reuters wrote:Melania Trump pays poignant visit to slave fortress in Ghana

Reuters•October 3, 2018

Melania Trump laid a wreath at a 17th-century slave fortress in Ghana on Wednesday, vowing never to forget where Africans were held before being shipped away into further hardship, most across the Atlantic.

Ghana is the jumping-off point for her first major solo international trip as first lady - a tour of Africa, a continent her husband reportedly referred to derisively.

She will visit Malawi, Kenya and Egypt as well.

"It's very emotional... I will never forget (the) incredible experience and the stories that I heard," she said after seeing the dungeons and walking through the "door of no return," the castle's final exit towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Her husband, Donald Trump, the US president, has not visited Africa since taking Her husband, Donald Trump, the US president, has not visited Africa since taking office in 2017.

In January, US media reported widely that he had described African states as "sh--hole countries" during a discussion with politicians about immigration. He has denied making the remark.

The Cape Coast castle, now a monument, has attracted world dignitaries including Mr Trump's predecessor, America's first black president Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two children.

Mr Obama likened the tour to his visit to the site of the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany, saying it was reminiscent of the capacity of human beings to commit "great evil.” A plaque at the Ghana fortress commemorates the Obamas' visit.

During her tour on Wednesday, Mrs Trump walked slowly with a guide through various wings, asking questions. She passed a row of cannons and descended into a dungeon where male slaves were held in chains.

"It's really, really touching," she said. "The dungeons that I saw, it's really something that people should see and experience, and what happened so many years ago - it's really a tragedy."

After passing through the "door of no return", she placed a wreath nearby and stood solemnly while her guide sang.

Before proceeding to the slave castle, she visited the palace of the head chief of the area and obtained royal approval to visit the fortress after US officials presented a gift of drinks to the chiefs.

The ceremony took place in Obama Hall at the Emintsimadze Palace, which was renamed in Mr Obama's honour after his visit in 2009.

Mrs Trump has made advocating for children her signature issue since becoming first lady.

A US official said the chief had invited two disabled children from a nearby school to the ceremony with the first lady, a break from local tradition in which it had previously been considered taboo to have anyone with handicaps in the palace.

Melania Trump Kicks Off Africa Trip In Dress That Costs 1,377 Times The Ghanaian Daily Minimum Wage

Melania's dress retails for around $2,000; the daily minimum wage where she's visiting is $1.67.

Melania Trump kicked off her Africa visit by wearing a dress that the average Ghanaian worker would have to work for years to be able to afford.

As E! Online reports, the first lady began her five-day, four-nation Africa trip at a hospital in Accra, Ghana, where she was greeted by crowds dancing while waving American and Ghanaian flags. One little girl even presented Mrs. Trump with a bouquet of flowers.

For the occasion, Mrs. Trump wore a red-and-white striped shirtdress by French fashion house Celine and a pair of white Manolo Blahnik high-heeled shoes. The dress retails for $2,300, and shoes similar to the ones Mrs. Trump wore retail for around $1,000 on the designer’s website. All told, the more expensive parts of Mrs. Trump’s outfit total somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000.

In Ghana, according to the government’s website, the minimum daily wage is eight Ghanaian cedis, or about $1.67. That means that a Ghanaian minimum wage worker would have to put in around 1,377 days on the job to be able to afford Mrs. Trump’s dress alone, or 1,796 days to be able to afford the entire ensemble.

Of course, Melania Trump is not the first first lady to visit a poor country wearing clothes that would be out of reach for the very people she’s visiting. As Free Beacon reported at the time, then-first lady Michelle Obama visited Liberia and Morocco in 2016 wearing a black floral Proenza Schouler wrap dress that, at the time, retailed for $1,750. By comparison, in Liberia, one of the poorest countries in the world, that dress would have been worth five times an average Liberian worker’s annual income. In Morocco, that dress would have cost a Moroccan worker 60 percent of his or her annual income to afford.

Mrs. Trump, for her part, often raises eyebrows with her fashion choices. Last week, for example, she was seen wearing black at about the same time a social media hashtag – #BelieveSurvivors – encouraged sexual assault survivors and their allies to wear black. And perhaps most famously, Mrs. Trump once showed up at a detention center where immigrant children were being held wearing a jacket with the words “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” emblazoned on the back. Mrs. Trump, through a spokesperson, insisted that there was no meaning behind that particular fashion choice.

Meanwhile, Melania’s Africa trip is expected to include visits to Malawi, Kenya, and Egypt, according to NBC News, during which she’ll focus on child welfare.

https://www.inquisitr.com/opinion/5098983/melania-trump-kicks-off-africa-trip-in-a-dress-that-costs-1377-times-the-ghanian-daily-minimum-wage/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FyDYq+%28The+Inquisitr+-+News%29&utm_content=Yahoo+Search+Results

Syl wrote:She seems to have mostly kept out of the international  spotlight since she became first lady, possibly out of embarrassment given who is married to.
Good for her for emerging with her own projects, and good for her for seeming to be acting independantly from her husband and not sharing his pompous insulting  opinion in regard to Africa.

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:She seems to have mostly kept out of the international  spotlight since she became first lady, possibly out of embarrassment given who is married to.
Good for her for emerging with her own projects, and good for her for seeming to be acting independantly from her husband and not sharing his pompous insulting  opinion in regard to Africa.

I would even go further.  We have discussed possible marital problems she is having with her husband.  I think she is doing things that are deliberately contrary to what her husband favors.

She went to visit the Hispanic children, when her husband was putting them in cages at the border.  Now, she visits African countries when her husband labels them as "shitholes".  She seems quite strategic in her selection of causes.

Original Quill wrote:She seems to be following a theme: you've seen how Donald does it; now here is the correct way to do it!  That not only shows her independence, but is a universal moral statement in itself.

Syl wrote:

Original Quill wrote:She seems to be following a theme: you've seen how Donald does it; now here is the correct way to do it!  That not only shows her independence, but is a universal moral statement in itself.

I have always liked her, but I love the way your opinion of her has changed in the last coupe of years.

Syl wrote:I think she was seen as a bit of a victim at first, there is no doubt that she was married to a powerful man who at best was manipulating her at worst abusing her.

No one want to be a victim, she is fighting back, in the best way possible.

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:I think she was seen as a bit of a victim at first, there is no doubt that she was married to a powerful man who at best was manipulating her at worst abusing her.

No one want to be a victim, she is fighting back, in the best way possible.

She's using her power as a leader, quite well.

Syl wrote:Same thing with Hilary Clinton when Bill was president and dallying with that dark haired girl with the stained blue frock
.
Hilary was criticised more for standing by him than he was for being a lying adulterer.  

Syl wrote:I agree...and it's the old double standard once more.
I dont see Theresa Mays husband being pilloried for her politics, in fact I doubt many people would recognise him if he wasnt stood alongside her, I wouldnt.
Even Dennis Thatcher got off lightly most of the time.

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:I agree...and it's the old double standard once more.
I dont see Theresa Mays husband being pilloried for her politics, in fact I doubt many people would recognise him if he wasnt stood alongside her, I wouldnt.
Even Dennis Thatcher got off lightly most of the time.

That's the way it used to be in the US, before Hillary Clinton came along.  The only difference between H and those before her is she is a professional, while the previous FLOTUS's were housewives.  Same with Michelle Obama, who caught the same sort of flak as H.  Michele is also a lawyer, only from Harvard, not Yale.

There's something about the working woman that Americans don't like...while they seem to adore a cooking, cleaning, baby-producing housewife.

Didge wrote:One word

Bullshit