Living in a Hopper

SUBHEAD: Edward Hopper's painting "Western Motel" has been built and occupied in a museum.

By David Pescovitz on 22 November 2019 for Boing Boing -
(https://boingboing.net/2019/11/22/sleeping-inside-one-of-edward.html)


Image above: Painting "Western Motel" by Edward Hopper 1957. From original article. Click to enlarge.

As part of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' "Edward Hopper and the American Hotel" exhibition, the curators have created a brilliant installation and visitor experience that's seemingly made for Instagram.

They built a physical version of Hopper's above painting "Western Hotel" (1957) and offered overnight stays inside the artwork. The overnight packages sold out very quickly. The New York Times' Margot Boyer-Dry was one of the first guests:

Every detail here was inspired by Edward Hopper’s 1957 painting “Western Motel,” which has been brought to vibrant, three-dimensional life. The only thing missing is the mysterious woman whose burgundy dress matches the bedspread. But that’s where the museum guest comes in.

I was the second person to stay in the museum’s Hopper hotel room, essentially becoming its subject for a night. (Before it sold out through February, the room cost anywhere from $150 a night to $500 for a package, including dinner, mini golf and a tour with the curator.)

My time there was short — a standard stay runs from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. — and awkward. I had traveled all day to reach Richmond, and these pristinely basic quarters were the main event. Ultimately, it reminded me of every other hotel room I’ve ever stayed in...

Ellen Chapman, a Richmond resident who stayed the night before I did, was more focused on the novelty of an art overnight. “I’ve always had that childhood fantasy of spending the night in a museum,” she said. “The remarkable part for me was waking up, drinking my coffee and looking at this amazing exhibit right next to me.”

Every detail of Edward Hopper’s “Western Motel” has been brought to life at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where you can spend the night https://nyti.ms/34a1vl1

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What's Better than Seeing a Hopper Painting?
(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/arts/design/edward-hopper-virginia-museum.html)

By Margot Boyer-Dry on 21 November 2019 for theNew York Times


Image above: Museum visitor viewing  "Western Motel" installation that is rented out as a hotel room within the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. From original article. Click to enlarge.

Behind a pane of glass at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a wooden bed frame anchors a sparsely decorated motel room. Vintage suitcases have been arranged at the foot of the bed, and light streams in diagonally through a window, just beyond which a green Buick is visible, parked in the foreground of a mesa landscape.

It looks like the setting of a painting, and it is. Every detail here was inspired by Edward Hopper’s 1957 painting “Western Motel,” which has been brought to vibrant, three-dimensional life. The only thing missing is the mysterious woman whose burgundy dress matches the bedspread. But that’s where the museum guest comes in.

I was the second person to stay in the museum’s Hopper hotel room, essentially becoming its subject for a night. (Before it sold out through February, the room cost anywhere from $150 a night to $500 for a package, including dinner, mini golf and a tour with the curator.)

My time there was short — a standard stay runs from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. — and awkward. I had traveled all day to reach Richmond, and these pristinely basic quarters were the main event. Ultimately, it reminded me of every other hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.

The “Hopper Hotel Experience” is the flashy centerpiece of “Edward Hopper and the American Hotel,” an exhibition featuring about 60 of the artist’s hospitality-themed works, including paintings, sketches and early-career cover illustrations for the trade magazine, Hotel Management.

Also on view are 35 works by other American artists exploring travel in America across time and medium, from Robert Salmon’s 1830 painting “Dismal Swamp Canal” to a 2009 photograph by Susan Worsham titled “Marine, Hotel Near Airport, Richmond, VA.”

Leo G. Mazow, the show’s curator, said he intends the Hopper room to do more than just generate buzz. “So many people say, ‘Well, Hopper’s about alienation.’” But for Mr. Mazow, Hopper’s themes of “transience and transportation yield a particular type of detachment,” which the hotel experience explores.

Hopper’s painting career coincided with the period when automobile production and expanding highway infrastructure made travel possible for a broader range of Americans.

A lifelong New Yorker, Hopper and his wife, Jo, took several extended road trips, during which he painted common elements of American life: hotels, motels and guesthouses; lighthouses; restaurants; city streets and interiors. His quietly dramatic depictions of those spaces and the people in them came to define an American aesthetic.


Image above: Ellen Chapman, a resident of Richmond, Va., inside the Hopper room at the museum. She said her stay fulfilled a childhood fantasy. From original article. Click to enlarge.

A Very 1960's Christmas

SUBHEAD: Fifty years ago, Christmas in New York came with dead bodies, fringes, patchouli and Jimi Hendrix.

By Staff on 25 December 2018 for Alternet.org -
(https://www.alternet.org/2018/12/very-1960s-christmas/)


Image above: Jimi Hendrix living in the Drake Hotyel in NYC in 1968.  From (https://www.thatericalper.com/jimi-hendrix-at-the-drake-hotel-in-new-york-city-1968/).

Christmas in 1968 was the first I would spend apart from my family. I was a cadet at West Point, and my parents and sisters lived in Hawaii, and I couldn’t afford to fly there for the holidays, so I called a woman I had been seeing in the city and asked if I could stay with her. To my great relief, she said yes.

She was a nurse who worked nights and lived on a bombed-out block of East 2nd Street, between Avenues A and B, as I recall. I took the bus to Port Authority, grabbed the shuttle to Grand Central and took the Lex to Bleecker Street and walked east. It was around freezing, and a stiff wind was blowing.

The further east I walked, the more deserted the streets were. Her block faced husks of deserted buildings and empty lots with Houston Street just beyond. It felt like a landscape out of some kind of post-apocalypse movie — boarded-up doors and blown-out windows, a few cars up on cinder blocks with missing wheels and tires, empty lots piled with derelict mattresses and broken furniture and plain old garbage.

Even in the bitter cold, the street stank.

But not as much as the entryway of her building. I smelled it the minute I pushed open the door: that sickly, sweet, somehow thick odor of death. It mixed with the smells of frying grease and garlic and peppers and onions and got stronger as I went up the stairs.

I turned onto the third floor and knew there was a body behind one of the doors. Her place was on the fourth floor, and when she opened the door, I asked her, don’t you smell that? I know, she said. The Puerto Ricans are always cooking stuff in this building.

I threw open a window to flush the smell out of the apartment and looked up the number for the Fifth Precinct and called them. A couple of beat cops showed up an hour or so later, and after them came a truck from the morgue. They hauled out the body of an old man who had died alone in his apartment a few days previously.

After they left, I went downstairs and propped open the front doors, and over the next day or so, the smell of death was gradually overtaken by the odors of fried food and cheap wine that had been spilled by winos trying to escape the cold. It was four days until Christmas.

She was a few years older than me, and we didn’t have a relationship as much as an arrangement. In the afternoons, we would lie around on her narrow bed in the front room watching a black and white TV until she had to put on her uniform for work, then we would venture out into the cold and dark New York winter and meet up again when she came back sometime after midnight.

I’d usually pick up something from one of the bodegas on First or Second Avenue, and we’d eat a late dinner in her kitchen and drink some wine and go back to bed.

The temperature dropped into the 20s on the day before Christmas, and with the wind blowing through the cracks around the old tenement windows, the radiators in her place struggled to keep up. We huddled under a pile of blankets and quilts until she had to go to work.

She had a later shift that night, so it was 9:00 by the time we bundled up and hit the street. I walked her over to the bus she took up First Avenue to Bellevue Hospital. I had read in the Voice that there would be a Christmas eve poetry reading at St. Marks in the Bowery, so I headed up Second Avenue.

Inside the church, it was a real old-fashioned beatnik scene. The place was crowded with long-haired East Village characters wearing long woolen overcoats and their old ladies in raccoon coats they’d picked up in the second hand shops on St. Marks Place. Someone was passing out cups of red wine at the door, and everyone was in a festive mood.

Up on the altar at the front of the room were several real beatniks: Hubert Huncke, known as “Huncke the junkie,” who was famous for his ability to scrounge up the scratch to feed his habit while staying out of jail; Gregory Corso, a diminutive pinch-faced guy with a cloud of curly hair and a mischievous smile; Ed Sanders, famous as an “investigative poet” and one of the Fugs, who ran the Peace Eye Bookstore, where he published “Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts.”

I took a seat on one of the pews several rows back from the front. They began playing a tape Allen Ginsberg had sent from somewhere upstate for the occasion, reading his poetry in his distinctive cadences, cheerful no matter the subject matter. Ginsberg’s chant was filling the church when I smelled a woosh of patchouli oil to my right.

I turned just as Jimi Hendrix slid in and sat down next to me. He was wearing a black hat with a wide brim and a fancy hat-band and a furry fringed vest and feather boas and a big silver belt that rode low on the hips of his bellbottoms. With him was an entourage of gorgeous young women chattering excitedly. Jimi sshhhed them.

We sat there for the next hour listening as East Village poets cried out in political protest and in celebration of sex and pot and Buddhism and the vegetarian lifestyle. Gregory Corso read a poem that managed to be angry and funny at once, and Ron Padgett read, and from Warhol’s factory Gerard Malanga read, and then there was an intermission.

Hendrix and his crew stood up and left, and I thought they were gone for good, but they came back and sat where they had been before, and Jimi shhhhed his entourage again when Ed Sanders took the mic and read a bawdy poem about a motel room.

Then Ed read a poem he had published in the Voice earlier that year when one of the Voice’s best writers, Don McNeill, had died unexpectedly. It was a sad, beautiful poem that captured something about that year, 1968, in its celebration of the death of a man who had covered the descent of hippiedom from pot and rock and roll and be ins into speed and smack and murders on Avenue B.


Image above: IslandBreath publisher Juan Wilson lived in a 4th floor walk-up apartment at 620 East Sixth Street between Avenue B and C in NYC in 1968 while attending the Cooper Union School of Architecture. 

Ed finished reading, and everyone sat silently for a moment, and then it was over. Hendrix stood, and in a rush of boas and fringe and patchouli, he was gone. He had sat there listening to poetry for at least two hours, and he never said a word.

After that night, I never listened to his music the same way again because I heard in his lyrics the rhythms of that night, his beat allusions to “happiness staggering down the street footprints dressed in red,” while “the wind whispers Mary.” I mean, how could you not hear his debt to the Beats amongst his brilliant guitar licks?

Hendrix was a poet who went out on a frigid New York Christmas eve to listen to poetry. He would be dead in London a year and a half later, but on that night in 1968, at the end of a year of protests and turmoil and war and assassinations, he was happy.
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Pres. Trump's dad in 1927 Klan rally

SUBHEAD: Reports confirm Donald Trump's dad was arrested at Klan rally, and that those arrested were "berobed"

By Rob Beschizza on 15 August 2017 for Boing Boing -
(http://boingboing.net/2016/08/29/reports-confirm-donald-trump.html)


Image above: Donald Trump and father Fred pictured together with report on arrest of Fred and other robed Ku Klux Klan members on Memorial Day 1927 in Queens NY. From original article.

Fred Trump, the father of millionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump, was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally as a young man, according to a 1927 New York Times story. Vice put in the legwork on corroborating the nearly-century-old one-sentence report. They not only found other reports of his arrest, but the startling fact that those arrested were "berobed".

The [Queens County Evening News] mentions Fred Trump as having been "discharged" and gives the Devonshire Road address, along with the names and addresses of the other six men who faced charges. Yet another account in another defunct local newspaper, the Richmond Hill Record, published on June 3, 1927, lists Fred Trump as one of the "Klan Arrests," and also lists the Devonshire Road address.

Another article about the rally, published by the Long Island Daily Press on June 2, 1927, mentions that there were seven arrestees without listing names, and claims that all of the individuals arrested were wearing Klan attire. ... While the Long Island Daily Press doesn't mention Fred Trump specifically, the number of arrestees cited in the report is consistent with the other accounts of the rally. Significantly, the article refers to all of the arrestees as "berobed marchers." If Fred Trump, or another one of the attendees, wasn't dressed in a robe at the time, that may have been a reporting error worth correcting.

[IB Publisher's note: The 1927 arrest record shows the address of Fred Trump as 175-24 Devonshire Road, Queens NY -the home Donald Trump grew up in. By 1927 Fred Trump had already changed his name from the Germanic "Friedrich Drumpf"]


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Energy consumption by states

SUBHEAD: Texas consumes the most energy, Vermont the least. Per capita New York the least. Hawaii close.

By Mickey Francis on 2 August 2017 for EIA.gov -
(https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32312)


Image above: Mountain of damaged oil drums near Exxon refinery. From (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_MOUNTAIN_OF_DAMAGED_OIL_DRUMS_NEAR_THE_EXXON_REFINERY_-_NARA_-_546000.jpg).

EIA’s State Energy Data System (SEDS) recently released 2015 data estimates for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The estimates include data on both total energy consumption and energy consumption per capita, which is calculated by dividing total consumption by population.

In 2015, Texas consumed a total of 13 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu), or about 13% of total U.S. energy consumption. Texas has consumed the most energy in every year since 1960, the earliest year for which EIA has data. California ranked second in energy use, with a total consumption of 8 quadrillion Btu, about 8% of U.S. total energy use.

Louisiana, Florida, and Illinois round out the top five energy-consuming states, which together account for more than one-third of total U.S. total energy use. Total energy consumption by the top 10 states exceeded the combined energy use of the other 41 states (including the District of Columbia).

Vermont was the lowest energy-consuming state in 2015 at about 132 trillion Btu; it was the only state with a lower consumption level than the District of Columbia’s 179 trillion Btu. Historically, Vermont has used less energy than any other state since 1961. Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, and New Hampshire round out the top five lowest energy-consuming states, which together accounted for only 1% of total U.S. energy use in 2015.

Overall, total U.S. energy consumption in 2015 was about 97 quadrillion Btu, a decrease of about 1% from 2014. In percentage terms, the states with the largest year-over-year percentage changes in energy use ranged from Minnesota, with a 7.6% decrease from 2014, to Florida, with a 3.7% increase from 2014.

Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia had less energy consumption in 2015 than in 2014, led by states in the Midwest.

The seven largest percentage decreases in energy use all occurred among Midwestern states: energy consumption in Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri decreased by a total of 704 trillion Btu from 2014 to 2015, accounting for nearly half of the total decline among states that had lower energy use in 2015 than in 2014.


Image above: Total BTU consumption by state. From original article.

In terms of total energy consumption per capita, Louisiana ranked the highest of any state, totaling 912 million Btu (MMBtu) per person in 2015. These rankings reflect the total consumption across all sectors in the state: residential, commercial, transportation, industrial, and electric power. Wyoming ranked second with 893 MMBtu, followed by Alaska (840 MMBtu), North Dakota (802 MMBtu), and Iowa (479 MMBtu).

High per capita energy consumption in these states is largely attributable to industrial sector energy consumption, which accounts for more than 50% of all consumption in those five states.

High production in the energy-intensive fossil fuel industry contributes to the high industrial sector consumption: Louisiana, Alaska, and North Dakota are all among the top ten states in crude oil production, while Wyoming is a leading producer of coal and natural gas. Iowa’s agriculture and manufacturing industries contribute to its relatively high consumption of energy in the sector.


Image above: Total BTU consumption per capita by state. From original article.

In 2015, New York had the lowest total energy consumption per capita at 189 MMBtu, followed by Rhode Island, California, Hawaii, and Florida. Again, relatively low per capita consumption reflects the relatively low industrial sector energy consumption in those states. Overall, the 2015 U.S. national average total energy consumption per capita was 303 MMBtu in 2015, about 2% lower than in 2014 and 1.6% lower than in 2000.

EIA’s State Energy Data System contains a complete set of state-level estimates of energy production, consumption, prices, and expenditures through 2015.

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Just for Fun!

SUBHEAD: Growing up near NYC I was a fan of 50's doowop music. People actually did this music on the street then.

By Juan Wilson on 4 July 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/07/just-for-fun.html)


Image above: Still frame from video below of group singing MMMbop.

Have a great holiday where ever you are. I'm not talking about patriotic fervor of loyalty to American militarism. I mean just have some fun than lightens your step and makes you smile. I stumbled on video below plowing through YouTube last night, and it has made me smile and laugh several times.

These guys are having real fun. My daughter Laura saw it and emailed me:

"I love to see how happy people are sometimes when they sing or play, love that feeling when you can't help dancing and laughing as you perform, then you know it's some good healing medicine!"

MMMbop Doo Wop version is a cover of the song written and performed by Hanson.  The artists are Kenton Chen, Luke Edgemon, Matt Bloyd, and mario Jose (vocals), Conrad Bauer (guitar), Adam Kubota (bass), Andy Sanesi (drums) and Scott Bradlee (piano).


Image above: MMMbop Doo Wop version.\ YouTube logo for full screen.  From (https://youtu.be/iEejfq1KhkU). See also Scott Bradlee's (www.postmodernjukebox.com) for more period music recreated today.

Lyrics to MMbop
Written and performed by Hanson

Oh oh oh oh oh
Yeah
You have so many relationships in this life
Only one or two will last
You go through all the pain and strife
Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast
Oh yeah
And they're gone so fast, yeah
Oh
So hold on the ones who really care
In the end they'll be the only ones there
And when you get old and start losing your hair
Can you tell me who will still care
Can you tell me who will still care?
Oh care
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du, yeah
Said oh yeah
In an mmmbop they're gone
Yeah yeah
Plant a seed, plant a flower, plant a rose
You can plant any one of those
Keep planting to find out which one grows
It's a secret no one knows
It's a secret no one knows
Oh, no one knows
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du, yeah
In an mmmbop they're gone
In an mmmbop they're not there
In an mmmbop they're gone
In an mmmbop they're not there
Until you lose your hair
Oh
But you don't care, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du, yeah
Can you tell me? oh
No you can't 'cause you don't know
Can you tell me? oh yeah
You say you can but you don't know
Can you tell me? oh (Which flower's going to grow?)
No you can't 'cause you don't know
Can you tell me? (If it's going to be a daisy or a rose?)
You say you can but you don't know
Can you tell me? oh (Which flower's going to grow?)
No you can't 'cause you don't know
Can you tell me?
You say you can but you don't know
You say you can but you don't know
You don't know
You don't know, oh
Mmmbop, duba
Du bop, du
Yeah, yeah
Mmmbop, duba
Du bop, du
Oh yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba duba dop
Ba du, yeah
Mmmbop, ba duba dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du bop, ba du dop
Ba du, yeah
Can u tell me? oh
No you can't 'cause you don't know
Can you tell me?
You say you can but you don't know
Say you can but you don't know

Another video I watched last night was the kind of music heard acapella from young on the tenement streets of the Lower east Side on New York in the 1960s. In the 50's the singers were teenagers. Now they are older. The video below was recorded 8 August 2014 on a New York sidewalk.


Image above: Unidentified doowop artists sing "Wonderful World". See more at source http://www.tinuonline.com).From (https://youtu.be/qW025ccPx5M).

(What a) Wonderful World

Written and performed by Sam Cooke

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book,
Don't know much about the french I took

But I do know that I love you,
And I know that if you love me, too,
What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much about geography,
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra,
Don't know what a slide rule is for

But I do know that one and one is two,
And if this one could be with you,
What a wonderful world this would be

Now, I don't claim to be an "A" student,
But I'm tryin' to be
For maybe by being an "A" student, baby,
I can win your love for me

Don't know much about history,
Don't know much biology
Don't know…(fade away)

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The End Begins

SUBHEAD: New York's "Billionaires Row" suffers biggest foreclosure in its history.

By Tyler Durden on 23 June 2017 for Zero Hedge  -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-23/new-yorks-billionaires-row-suffers-biggest-foreclosure-history)


Image above: And perhaps most impressive is the view of Central Park — waking up to this everyday is worth $100 million.From (http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-one57s-100-million-penthouse-2015-1#and-perhaps-most-impressive-is-the-view-of-central-park--waking-up-to-this-everyday-is-worth-100-million-10).

In the latest sign that NYC’s ultra-high end property market is on the verge of imploding after a wave of overly aggressive development, another luxury condo at Manhattan’s One57 tower, a member of “Billionaire’s Row,” a group of high-end towers clustered along the southern edge of Central Park, has gone into foreclosure - the second in the span of a month.

The 6,240-square-foot (580-square-meter) full-floor penthouse in question, One57’s Apartment 79, sold for $50.9 million in December 2014, making it the eighth-priciest in the building.

“It’s probably the most-expensive foreclosure we’ve ever seen in luxury development,” said Donna Olshan, president of high-end Manhattan brokerage Olshan Realty Inc. “I don’t know of a foreclosure that’s larger than that.”

According to Bloomberg, the shell company that purchased the property took out an unusually large mortgage and promised to repay in full a year later.

In September 2015, the company took out a $35.3 million mortgage from lender Banque Havilland SA, based in Luxembourg. The full payment of the loan was due one year later, according to court documents filed in connection with the foreclosure.

The borrower failed to repay, and now Banque Havilland is forcing a sale to recoup the funds, plus interest.

And, in what’s become a strong contender for the “no sh*t” quote of the day, a spokeswoman for Extell Developments, the developer that built One57, said there' s a lesson to be learned from this unfortunate situation.

“This shows that too much leverage is probably not wise,” Anna LaPorte, an Extell spokeswoman, said of the most recent default.

Image above: Ninety stories of multimillion dollar apartments is a new record in NYC real estate. Evan Joseph/Extell Development. From (http://www.businessinsider.com/inside-one57s-100-million-penthouse-2015-1#of-the-26-units-sold-so-far-only-half-of-the-buyers-are-known-they-include-head-of-bdo-unicon-group-andrey-dubinsky-and-president-of-swanson-health-products-leland-swanson-2).

A June 14th auction was scheduled for a 56th-floor apartment at the same tower. That condo was purchased in July 2015 for $21.4 million. Public records have yet to reveal any transfer of ownership for that property.

Investors across the NYC property spectrum should take note; prices in Manhattan and Brooklyn have risen so quickly they’ve effectively pushed marginal buyers out of the market and forced renters to devote a greater share of their income to housing.

Today, more than 30% of Americans pay half their income in rent - the highest percentage in decades.

And with more investors in the city concentrating on luxury properties, some ultra-luxury buildings like One57 are struggling with unsustainable vacancy rates of nearly 40%.

Until last month, no apartments on Billionaires’ Row, which also includes 432 Park Ave., had been subject to a foreclosure auction, according to PropertyShark. The loss of a Manhattan residential property to creditors is a rare event, regardless of the unit's price-tag: Only 27 new residential foreclosures in the borough in the first quarter.

Could this be the start of a trend? We think so. Which leads us to our next question: How, exactly, does one short the luxury real-estate market?

We also look forward to The Left deciding that a probe into this transaction is warranted, just in case it was some complex way to transfer Russian funds to Trump... (only half-kidding).
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Tulsi meets with Trump

SUBHEAD: The cause of peace is too great to allow political disagreements to stand in our way.

By Tulsie Gabbar on 21 November 2016 in Island Breath -
(http://gabbard.house.gov/index.php/press-releases/655-gabbard-statement-on-meeting-with-president-elect-donald-trump)


Image above: Photos of Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump put together by Breitbart News. From (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/21/dem-congresswoman-meets-with-trump-to-discuss-foreign-policy/).

[IB Publisher's note: The content below is from an email sent to Tulsi Gabbard supporters and is similar to her press release on the subject linked to above.]

As you have no doubt heard by now, I met with President-elect Donald Trump earlier today.

He asked me to meet with him to discuss our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face.

It would have been easier for me to refuse this meeting. The establishment and social media have been talking about this all day. But I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives.

In fact, like President Obama, I firmly believe that now is the time for us to put our country first, and come together, regardless of political party, and tackle the many challenges we face.

This was an opportunity to advocate for peace—and I felt it was important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect to counteract neocons’ steady drumbeats of war, which threaten to drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government.

This war has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families.

It has also strengthened al-Qaeda and other violent, extremist groups in the region.  It would have been irresponsible not to accept this invitation.

I feel it is my duty to take every single opportunity I get to advocate for peace, no matter the circumstances of those meetings.

I shared with him my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no-fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia – potentially resulting in a nuclear war.

We discussed my bill to end our country’s illegal war to overthrow the Syrian government and the need to focus our precious resources on rebuilding our country, and on defeating al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups who pose a threat to the American people.

Also, where I disagree with President-elect Trump on issues, I will not hesitate to express that disagreement. You didn’t send me to Washington to make friends with the political elite. You sent me to represent you, and I am committed to doing just that.

In short: I will never allow partisanship to undermine our national security when the lives of countless people lay in the balance.

If that earns me enemies in Washington or at the State Department, then so be it.

I hope you’ll continue to stand with me and stay engaged. The cause of peace is too great for us to allow political disagreements or partisanship to stand in our way.


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