Last fiscal year, the Trump family took more trips that required Secret Service protection than the Obama family took in seven, according to a budget document released by the Treasury Department. On average, Obama’s family took 133.3 protected trips per year, while the Trump family has taken an average of 1,625 annually. Much of the Trump family’s known travel has been to promote Trump Organization businesses, which President Trump still owns and profits from. Every President and his family deserve Secret Service protection. But the President’s private business should reimburse taxpayers for money spent at Trump’s businesses or in support of them.



While previous presidents have separated themselves from their assets and placed them in a blind trust, President Trump appointed his two adult sons to manage the international businesses that continue to make him hundreds of millions of dollars a year on his behalf. The Trump family’s extremely high number of protected trips can be partially explained by the fact that Eric and Don Jr. have traveled the world promoting Trump-branded businesses throughout the Trump presidency. This explanation does less to settle concerns than to highlight the extent to which the American people are subsidizing the Trump family business. Despite running up a high tab, the Trump Organization has not paid the American people back for the security taxpayers have subsidized when Trump family members travel to support a business that regularly cashes in on the presidency.

Of course the Trump family is entitled to Secret Service protection, and should be protected, but increasing the volume by more than a factor of ten has put a strain on the agency’s budget. So much so, that the Secret Service has had to justify the spike in protective travel costs in its congressional budget requests for the past two years. That appears to be the only reason the number of protected visits has been made public at all. Not only has the frequent travel put a strain on the budget, but a Secret Service agent told VICE News that Trump’s travel has contributed to “burnout.”

The Secret Service 2020 and 2021 budget requests contain explanations of some of the expenses driving costs that necessitate a larger budget. One of these is protective travel. Protective travel spiked massively in 2017 when Trump became president. In the last fiscal two years, the Trump family has taken 3,249 protected trips. In seven years, the Obama family took a total of 933.

https://www.citizensforethics.org/trump-family-travel-12x-obama-family/

We had been dating 3 months. I insisted, yet again, that I could take care of myself. He grabbed my hand & said, “Connie, you will not lose your right to vote or own property if you let me make your coffee.” So I married him.

Happy 16th anniversary, @SenSherrodBrown. I love you.



https://twitter.com/ConnieSchultz/status/1248600108171767808

Yesterday 10,000 cars in San Antonio lined up for food distribution.

More than any picture or statistic I’ve seen, this is what scares me.

We have so much farther to go with this crisis, and so many families are already underwater.

My heart breaks thinking about the scale of pain and suffering the poor and working class are going to be facing for a long time.

For those asking if it’s real, please consider a donation to @safoodbank
https://twitter.com/safoodbank/status/1248393287704051713

With Broadway and performing arts venues across the country shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, live theater is in short supply these days. But theater lovers still have reason to rejoice: Iconic British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is making select musicals from his extensive oeuvre available to watch on YouTube each Friday for the next seven weeks.

Lloyd Webber announced the initiative, dubbed “The Shows Must Go On!,” in a video posted last week. The virtual series kicked off April 3 with the Donny Osmond-led 1999 film adaptation of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This Friday’s offering is a 2012 filmed stage version of Jesus Christ Superstar, starring Ben Forster as Jesus, former Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm (also known as Melanie C.) as Mary Magdalene and Tim Minchin as Judas. Future lineups will be announced in “due course,” reports Tim Dams for Variety.

Each feature-length show will begin streaming on YouTube at 2 p.m. EST and remain accessible—free of charge—for the next 48 hours.

“I’m here to tell you that Universal [has] come up with the idea of a whole series now called ‘The Shows Must Go On,’ which is about musicals going from stage to screen,” says Webber in the video announcement.

He notes that the roster of musicals will also include “my disaster musical By Jeeves, and I’m very, very fond of it.” (The show, a musical comedy based on British humorist P.G. Wodehouse’s writings, famously flopped during its initial run, but gained acclaim after undergoing extensive revisions.)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/show-must-go-line-watch-free-broadway-musicals-every-friday-180974640/?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=socialmedia

Much of the animal abuse that takes place in the series masquerades as cuteness, making it that more insidious.

In the midst of a pandemic, almost anything new in the entertainment world is being dubbed “the perfect escape.” But in the case of the new Netflix documentary “Tiger King,” this isn’t hyperbole. Here was exactly what we needed while self-isolating: a binge-worthy true crime docuseries. “Tiger King” mixes cults, murder, politics and fame for a spellbinding seven hours of crazy television. The problem? We’re all talking about it — but we’re mostly missing the point.

Sure, watching the story of Joe Exotic unfold over the course of five years was fascinating, as were the various subplots of meth and mayhem. “Tiger King” was filled with cringe-worthy moments, but instead of giving us nightmares they have mostly given us memes.

“Tiger King” was filled with cringe-worthy moments, but instead of giving us nightmares they have mostly given us memes.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, filmmaker Eric Goode explained that he and his partner, Rebecca Chaiklin, sought to explore the “pathology of people that engaged in these subcultures,” adding that they honed in specifically on the people they found were “almost more interesting than the exotic animals they’re keeping.” Joe Exotic certainly is the star of this (and his own) show, but by privileging his misadventures, we may have missed a huge opportunity to make a difference in the exotic animal trade.

“The animals are the real victims who are caught up in this human drama,” Kitty Block, CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, told me. “The antics of Joe Exotic, Doc Antle and others featured in the series have caused untold misery for countless animals, as well as created an overpopulation crisis of big cats in this country. Using tiger cubs for public photo ops results in an untold number of cubs being bred solely for this practice and then quickly disposed of after they are only a few months old — then dumped to spend their lives in tiny cages at other roadside zoos.”

Several moments of abuse can be seen in the fourth episode, such as Joe having a promotional photoshoot with a handful of tiger cubs that are so small their eyes aren’t even open. Tiger cubs usually open their eyes about a week or two after birth. But viewers wouldn’t know that, because the filmmakers don’t mention it, instead using the footage as background to talk about Joe Exotic’s quest for better Google rankings. In the same episode, we learn that Exotic’s so-called television studio burned down due to arson. It is casually mentioned that the studio also doubled as the alligator “habitat,” but there’s no focus on how or why the alligators — who burned alive in the fire — are being kept in seemingly small indoor pools.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/tiger-king-memes-joe-exotic-jokes-mask-netflix-doc-s-ncna1172561?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma