February 24, 2024

Saturday, February 24, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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Joe is always busy.

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Chuck is always busy.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer went to Ukraine to dramatize our commitment and to pressure GOP to provide money for Ukraine.

Members of the GOP may yet come to their senses, at least on Ukraine.

But this is breaking news.

Touch to hear the Congressman. 👇

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Trump is one very confused #SickFuk.

Mary Trump says it’s dementia.

Then there is the racism.

This behavior 👇 by the Trump team shocked even me.

Trump Tries to Change NY Business Addresses to FL in Fraud Judgment .

Donald Trump's attorneys were required to submit a proposed order for Judge Engoron to sign that conformed to his verdict and judgment in the case. They complied, but in the process it seems that Trump is trying to pull a fast one somewhere along the way. The proposed judgment that was submitted had the addresses changed for 6 of Trump's businesses from New York to Florida. It is unclear whether this was something done by Trump before his trial in a feeble attempt to put them out of the jurisdiction of the NY courts, or if it was done after the trial to try to avoid the judgment. As with all things Trump, nothing is on the straight and narrow.

Either way, the Attorney General's Office filed an immediately objection to the proposed judgment over these address changes. In their filing, the AG said "several of the addresses for the Defendants in the proposed judgment are incorrect ... the Court should reject Defendants' attempt to change the business address of six entity Defendants to Florida as the record establishes those entities are located in Trump Tower at 725 5th Avenue in New York, the office building in which the executives who carry out business activities of those entities work."

(MeidasTouch Network).

By the way, there is now a new official total of Trump’s fine for fraud.

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You may have heard Trump suddenly and belatedly denounced the Alabama Court decision and embraced IVF.

Trump says he supports I.V.F. and calls for the treatment to remain legal.

Former President Donald J. Trump on Friday broke his silence on the Alabama Supreme Court’s declaration that frozen embryos are entitled to legal protection, distancing himself from the staunchest abortion opponents in calling on the state’s Legislature to “act quickly” to protect in vitro fertilization treatments, which he said should remain legal in every state.

The remarks, after days of silence on the topic, come as he seeks to contain damage from the ruling, which has highlighted divisions in the Republican Party between those who say life begins at conception and those who want to protect reproductive services like I.V.F.

“We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder! That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every State in America,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on his social media website.

The ruling this week by Alabama’s top court has set off a new round of backlash for Republicans from a broad spectrum of Americans who support the use of I.V.F. treatments, in which multiple eggs are fertilized in the hope that one embryo can be successfully implanted, for would-be parents who are having difficulty conceiving.

Democrats, led by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, have assailed the decision as the inevitable consequence of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade, which they say Mr. Trump is responsible for since he nominated justices who are opposed to constitutional protections for abortion.

“Trump cannot run from his record and neither can the millions of women who his actions have hurt,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement after Mr. Trump’s post on Friday.

But Mr. Trump’s remaining Republican opponent for the party’s presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, gave the former president a significant opening when she told NBC News that she agreed with the Alabama decision. Both candidates have tried to appear more moderate on the issue of abortion, given the power of abortion rights in recent elections.

“The Republican Party should always be on the side of the Miracle of Life — and the side of Mothers, Fathers and their Beautiful Babies,” Mr. Trump wrote. “IVF is an important part of that.” (New York Times)

The Hypocrite spoke at last.

Yes, the backlash on IVF scared him and many fiercely anti-abortion Republican Candidates, frightened by the fallout from the Alabama decision, backtracked on this version of personhood for embryos. They want to pretend that the Supreme Court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade, which Trump has been taking credit for in recent months, didn’t cause this verdict against IVF.

Don’t be surprised if the next step by Trump and his cult will be to try to pass laws restricting the use of IVF to heterosexual, married couples.

The Biden-Harris response is below.👇

Touch to watch the Vice President. 👇

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Wayne LaPierre of the NRA was found guilty by a jury of abusing the not-for-profit NRA and required to make restitution.

There is much to be said about the greed and evil that Wayne LaPierre represents, but for now, just one question - Do you know who the prosecutor was?

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Putting this in the Roundup because I can.

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Another reason to visit New York City.

See the RBG collars at the Jewish Museum. Visit Bea Potter at the Morgan. See a play.

A first look at the darling new Beatrix Potter exhibit in NYC.

The work of the author and illustrator of the beloved Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny tales shines at this new Morgan Library & Museum show.

The author and illustrator who ignited our childhood imaginations with tales of cuddly bunnies, mischievous squirrels and daring ducks is getting a well-deserved spotlight in NYC.

The wholesome and beautiful works of beloved children’s author and land conservationist Beatrix Potter are now on view at The Morgan Library & Museum through June 9.

“Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature,” opens Friday, February 23, as one of the museum and library’s centennial year exhibitions, and it is the most darling show in the city right now.

For adults who grew up reading her storybooks about cute but mischievous anthropomorphized animals—Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Tom Kitten and Jeremy Fisher—and for children who are currently reading them, the exhibition is both a nostalgic and celebratory look inside her sketchbook so to speak.

“I do not remember a time when I did not try to invent pictures and make fairy-tales—amongst the wild flowers, the animals, trees and mosses and fungi—all the thousand common objects of the country side; that pleasant unchanging world of realism and romance,” Potter wrote in a 1940 letter.

You can see her devotion to storytelling and nature across 175 objects in two galleries and four sections, one of which includes a delightful recreation of Potter’s home that you can actually sit and read in.

Town & Country

Potter, who was born in 1866, grew up in some of the most picturesque places in Victorian England. She spent a lot of her early childhood sketching animals (she had about 90 pets in her lifetime); artifacts (Roman objects and fossils); and plants (since she and her family had regular access to the zoo and the Victoria & Albert Museum and had residences throughout the English countryside). Her family was creative—her lawyer father was a photographer and her mother was a watercolorist.

In this first gallery, you get a sense of how immersed in nature Potter was and what her imagination was like from an early age. There’s even a page of her diary that she wrote in code, which has since been deciphered. 

Under the Microscope

You quickly see how the natural sciences captured her attention through her incredibly detailed, almost photo-like drawings of fungi, insects and other natural items. It turns out this brilliant illustrator and writer was also an amateur mycologist (someone who studies fungi), who got to be surrounded by nature during her stays in the country in Scotland and northwest England’s Lake District.

Natural Storyteller

The last section celebrates and explores Potter’s pretty much accidental foray into becoming a best-selling author. If you didn’t know, her stories about Peter Rabbit and the like stemmed from private letters to Noel Moore, the ailing five-year-old son of her friend and former governess. In these “picture letters,” she sketched out a story about bunnies based on her real-life pet Peter Piper. Over time, she came up with other characters like Squirrel Nutkin and Twinkleberry Squirrel.

While this exhibition has traveled the world, the Morgan’s iteration has something the others didn’t—these picture letters. The Library and Museum has had this collection of letters for a long time and first displayed them in 2012.

At the prodding of her friend and former governess to publish her stories, Potter went to bat with her publisher to keep the books small enough to fit in the hands of children and to be affordable for “little rabbits,” according to Morgan Library & Museum curator Philip Palmer.

You can see her preparatory sketches of Peter Rabbit and her paintings of actual places that inspired Mr. McGregor’s garden in The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, the “little books” she published, and her childhood paintbox. Also on view: official Beatrix Potter toys that came out in the height of her popularity (when The Tale of Peter Rabbit debuted, it sold 50,000 copies in a year), from a stuffed Jemima Puddle-Duck doll to a Peter Rabbit racing board game. She once said her books were successful because they were “written to a child and not made to order,” according to Palmer.

Living Nature

The highlight of the exhibit is the recreation of her country home in the final section.

Later in her life, Potter moved to the Lake District to a farm she called Hill Top and would eventually become a fell farmer and champion sheep breeder (she raised a prize-winning sheep named Water Lily). Her life here was similar to her nature-filled childhood—you can see her devotion to nature through letters, photographs and paintings and finally, her dedication to farming and conservation. You can see her actual clogs and walking stick, which she lovingly etched with the names of her two dogs. 

When she died in 1943, Potter left 4,000 acres to the U.K.’s National Trust, allowing it to own and care for over 20% of the Lake District, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Potter’s love for nature, her incredibly dainty and detailed artwork and her imaginative stories have left an inedible mark, especially on New Yorkers. 

“It was like seeing an old friend again,” Palmer said about Potter’s work. “It taps into what we do—we get sick of the city and need to get out and see nature. New York is also a book-loving city, so for many, these books were a formative experience for a lot of us.”

“Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature,” opens at the Morgan Library & Museum on Friday, February 23 and is on through June 9, 2024.

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