Michelle Obama has finally revealed what was in that blue Tiffany’s box that Melania Trump gave her on Inauguration Day last year.
“It was a lovely frame,” Obama shared with Ellen DeGeneres on her first appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” since leaving the White House.
When Trump presented the former first lady with the square box, it made for a bit of an awkward moment, with Obama looking uncertain about what to do with it.
In a preview clip from an upcoming show, posted by Entertainment Weekly, DeGeneres rolled footage while Obama explained what happened.
Former first lady Michelle Obama relives an awkward Inauguration Day gift exchange during her first television interview since leaving the White House https://t.co/yw84e3t0qY pic.twitter.com/6tFwyRo09N
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 1, 2018
“There is all this protocol,” she explained on the show, which will air Thursday. “I mean, this is like a state visit so they tell you, ‘You’re gonna do this, they’re gonna stand here.’ Never before do you get this gift, so I’m sort of like, ‘OK, where … what am I supposed to do with this gift?'”
As the audience laughed, she added, “everyone cleared out and no one would come and take the box.”
That’s when her husband, former President Barack Obama, came to the rescue.
“I’m thinking, ‘Do we take the picture?’ And then my husband saved the day,” she said. “He grabbed the box and took it back inside. But everybody cleared out — no staff, no one. I was like, ‘What do you do with the box?'”
https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/959189915522170880
That woman is sick and sickening! It should not have taken so long for her to be charged!
India Wants to Give Half a Billion People Free Health Care
By VINDU GOEL and HARI KUMAR
FEB. 1, 2018
Here is a link to a page which offers suggestions for activities for creating empathy in children:
https://startempathy.org
Excerpt from http://rethinked.org/?p=7560
Here is a photo of Kyle Schwartz book:
https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780738219141-us.jpg
What say you, Blackademics?
Business
Trump administration strips consumer watchdog office of enforcement powers in lending discrimination cases
By Renae Merle February 1 at 12:54 PM
He is trying to suffocate racial justice and equality!
Middle Aged White Soccer Dad Chaos Agent 🌹
@BeauInMaryland
1. Salena Zito wrote an intellectually dishonest, inaccurate, anti- everyone-but-rich-people column today. That, in itself, probably isn’t news. But it’s funny that she’s used the same exact same Trump supporter FOUR TIMES recently
Dem leaders call on Ryan to oust Nunes as Intel Committee chair
02/01/18 12:49 PM—UPDATED 02/01/18 12:54 PM
By Steve Benen
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post yesterday, condemning his panel’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), for pushing to release classified information, in a misleading way, for partisan political purposes. Nunes, Schiff wrote, has “crossed a dangerous line.”
The question then turns to consequences. As CNBC reported, Democratic leaders this morning took their concerns to a new level.
Jennifer Freakin’ Rubin:
Tale of 2 HBCUs: One enjoying a boom, one fending off doom
Ernie Suggs Eric Stirgus The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
7:06 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018 AJC Homepage
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, founded by Quakers in 1838, is the nation’s oldest historically black college.
North Carolina A&T State, created in 1890 by an act of the state Legislature, is the nation’s largest historically black college.
Both are public schools. But A&T is booming, and Cheyney is struggling. Enrollment at A&T now is nearing 12,000, and incoming freshmen have a GPA of 3.5. Enrollment at Cheyney declined more than 50 percent from 2010 to 2015, and the school’s accrediting agency has placed it on probation.
Jim Messina to Ms Greenspan that this is likely Paul Ryan’s last year as Speaker.
Nancy SMASH will likely take back the gavel.
John O. Brennan Retweeted Adam Schiff
I had many fights with Congressional Dems over the years on national security matters. But I never witnessed the type of reckless partisan behavior I am now seeing from Nunes and House Republicans. Absence of moral and ethical leadership in WH is fueling this government crisis.
Here they go with this Hope Hicks is a kid fuckery.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51GQZcEE-yL._SL500_AC_SS350_.jpg
https://youtu.be/U6Uus–gFrc&rel=0
Yep…
https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/958838964353490945
Perilous times
and aided by RUSSIA ALSO TOO
SPOT ON. What are we going to do about it?
HMMMMMMMMM
HMMMMMMMMM
South Carolina’s Governor Encourages State To Participate In ‘Stand For The Flag Super Bowl Sunday’
Republican Governor Henry McMaster claims he’s doing this for South Carolina’s veterans.
https://blavity.com/south-carolinas-governor-encourages-state-to-participate-in-stand-for-the-flag-super-bowl-sunday?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Blavity%20Daily%20Newsletter%202118&utm_content=Blavity%20Daily%20Newsletter%202118+CID_f9ae09af333c4f4462cb5c2b63ea347a&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=governor%20is%20encouraging
#ThursdayThoughts #LangstonHughes, America’s great black #gay poet of the Harlem Renaissance, born on this day in 1902, published his first book at 22.
He wrote:
“Hold fast to dreams,
for if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”#BlackHistoryMonth pic.twitter.com/NgZRTARt91
— Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) February 1, 2018
Beginning #BlackHistoryMonth honoring the author of that seminal work “The Mis-Education of the Negro.” Well done! https://t.co/pWdMBAgEoG
— Sherrilyn Ifill (@Sifill_LDF) February 1, 2018
A #GoogleDoodle celebrating historian, author, and journalist Carter G. Woodson, considered the “father of black history.” Art by @shannondrewthis! #BlackHistoryMonth → https://t.co/7qLBJ9jWeT pic.twitter.com/1sAbQXxct8
— Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) February 1, 2018
https://media.giphy.com/media/R60LN0w6lfYcg/giphy.gif
Frederick Douglass, a champion of American individualism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/frederick-douglass-a-champion-of-american-individualism/2018/01/31/8698e452-05f1-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.980dc8d961cd
Douglass..the man that wrote…’ What does the 4th of July mean to the Negro?’
UH HUH
UH HUH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLGr_t86bY
The likelihood that Hicks lied to Bobby Three Sticks?
I’d say 10 on a scale of 10, folks.
Like I said…the man worked for PROFESSIONAL Criminals…
He’d recognize from a mile away, the type of criminals that get you put in jail
………………………………………………………………..
When Mark Corallo left last summer, the spokesman told others he’d never worked any place that worked like that and had never seen people behave like he’d seen in the White House. And he was worried he wasn’t being told the truth. https://t.co/UeoWowvnJi
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) February 1, 2018
To recap, Wolff reported Corallo resigned over concerns he’d witnessed an obstruction attempt.
NYT corroborates what Corallo witnessed, reports he immediately told legal team AND Bannon.
Wolff reported Bannon screamed at Hicks “You don’t know how much trouble you are in.”
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) February 1, 2018
Corollo: I hung up the phone, reported it to my boss, told 3 colleagues, wrote it all down and then quit my job in order to get away from it
Hicks: nu uh. never happened.
This is not he said/she said, folks. This was a person who took an oath realizing he had seen the enemy
— Moira Whelan (@moira) February 1, 2018
Betcha we learn Hope had reason to believe they could withhold the emails.
Remember: Emails in CIA leak case went missing. It took years to find them.
But then … Cheney was competent. pic.twitter.com/QyoPRvFvth
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) February 1, 2018
Republicans are helping Trump obstruct justice for the same reason they help him hide his tax returns.
They assume he broke the law and they want to help him get away with it because it owns libs and/or they did too. https://t.co/tUQqfU0Xzi
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) February 1, 2018
Plus, they’ve ALWAYS wanted to dismantle our government, for their own nefarious gains.
ALSO TOO
LarryO’s show last night was pretty good.
THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O’DONNELL 1/31/18
Rep. Schiff: Nunes altered approved memo before sending to…
Intel Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff says in a tweet that GOP Chairman Devin Nunes changed the Republican memo critical of the FBI, after it was voted on but before it was sent to the White House. Lawrence O’Donnell is joined by a panel.
ICYMI:
They are putting out the fake Nunes Memo.
And, even the fake Nunes Memo is even MORE fake, because, according to Schiff, Nunes changed the Memo, and it’s not the one that the GOP Member approved of.
Also, Quigley of Illinois asked Nunes if his staff HAD HELP FROM THE WHITE HOUSE with the Memo, He refused to answer the question.
So, they will be putting out a faked Memo, USING CLASSIFIED MATERIAL – that the FBI let them see UNDER THE UNDERSTANDING THAT IT WOULD GO NO FURTHER THAN THE COMMITTEE.
UH HUH
UH HUH
#Russia’s state TV:
Chiefs of three Russian intelligence and espionage agencies (SVR, FSB, GRU) quietly traveled to Washington, unbeknownst to the mainstream media. Vyacheslav Nikonov says that info about their travels may have been leaked in retaliation for “The Kremlin List.” pic.twitter.com/sNQsDRK1Pe
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) February 1, 2018
White House role in Nunes memo scrutinized
Betsy Woodruff, politics reporter for The Daily Beast, talks with Rachel Maddow about questions about whether the staff of Devin Nunes worked with the White House on the anti-FBI memo, and how the memo has turned the Trump DoJ against Trump Republicans.
Nunes breach shocks intelligence community
Ken Dilanian, national security reporter for NBC News, talks with Rachel Maddow about the FBI’s resistance to the Nunes memo, and new reporting from the New York Times about the Air Force One meeting to draft the cover story for Donald Trump Jr’s Trump Tower meeting with Russians.
Russia spy chiefs met with Trump team in U.S.
Rachel Maddow reports on yet another instance of Americans learning about a meeting between Russians and Trump officials from reporting in Russian media. In this case Russia intelligence officials violating sanctions law to come to the U.S.
FBI warns against Trump release of Nunes memo
Rachel Maddow details the lengths to which FBI and DoJ officials have gone to warn Republicans against releasing a memo of classified information assembled by Devin Nunes, and a new report of Donald Trump pressuring officials with questions about loyalty.
“…but Hope Hicks is only 28.”
America: a country where black kids are tried as adults and white adults are treated like kids.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) February 1, 2018
Watch whiteness work tho. They’re already calling Hope Hicks a 29 year old kid. Wait for the white tears and she’ll be given a pass.
WTF
Somebody on another blog posted that they hoped that Rosenstein was wearing a wire. I do too.
Trump’s loyalty demands pose key test for Justice Department
02/01/18 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
When Donald Trump met privately with then-FBI Director James Comey the week after the president’s inauguration, he reportedly told Comey, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.”
About four months later, after having fired Comey in the hopes of undermining an ongoing federal investigation, the president met privately with then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. After exchanging pleasantries, Trump had a question for the bureau leader: Whom did he vote for in the 2016 election? (McCabe found the interaction “disturbing.”)
And six months after that, according to reports from CNN, ABC News, and the New York Times, the Republican president had a related question for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
You know, watching the shows reporting on the latest in the Russia probe, watching Whiteness work. The bending over backwards to ‘interpret’ what Hope Hicks said. Giving her the benefit of the doubt. Casting her as ‘naive’ and ‘ignorant’. Watching this knowing full well that nobody non-White would be given this consideration, time and time again.
” Asylum seeker says Border Patrol assaulted her, then she miscarried”
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-border-miscarriage-20180119-story.html?utm_source=Migratory+Notes+Pop-Up+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8124d4844b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_084466b101-8124d4844b-447648329
Excerpt:
The sourcing in here is something else. All the rats are jumping off the ship. https://t.co/RY7mXXvhnU
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) February 1, 2018
Note: Corallo was a spokesman for Trump’s legal team. He was not Trump’s attorney.
Corallo allegedly quit after the infamous flight where Trump dictated Jr’s false statement about the Trump Tower-Russia meeting fearing he was witnessing obstruction of justice. https://t.co/iZkn0C3izw
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) January 31, 2018
Now, this is someone who worked for the Bush Crime Family and Scooter Libby. He knows crimes when he sees them, and said, ‘I’m out.’
Former member of Trump legal team to tell Special Counsel In Russia investigation of obstruction concerns stemming from previously undisclosed phone call with POTUS on the line. Read our @NYTimes exclusive here: https://t.co/TmU3A3aHHp
— Jo Becker (@Jo_Becker) February 1, 2018
Carter G Woodson is today’s Google Doodle.
I’m doing my own Countdown Clock
15 days until Wakanda
I am looking forward to seeing the movie!!!
We miss you, Forever FLOTUS 😍😍
Good Morning Everyone 😄😄😄
Good Morning, Everyone.
Wishing all of you a wonderful day :)
Good Morning, 3 Chic Family!