Beltway Insider: Trump/Queen Toast, Brits Protest, D-Day Anniversary, PM Hopefuls Implode, Manafort Headed to Rikers, Dr. John

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania met this week with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in the first official state visit which coincided with the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day invasion and liberation of Europe.

According to Gallup, President Trump's job approval rating, which was tracked for the two week time period of May 15 -30, 2019, decreased five percentage points to 40% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President increased by four percentage points to 55%. A slight 4% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated bi-monthly.

Trump/Queen Toast

President Trump arrived in London in his first state visit to the United Kingdom. Buckingham Palace road, the long road leading to the palace had been decorated with the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack to remind the world, the people and the president of the longstanding friendship the two nations have shared.


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The crowds were sparse, along Buckingham Palace road, as the President arrived greeted by the Queen, her son and heir to the throne, His Royal Highness Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla.

The duties of accompanying the president to events fell on HRH Prince Charles as the Queen, who had a flare up of bone spurs, a longstanding medical condition which she has suffered in silence for her entire reign, prevented her from the necessary walking.

The official state dinner, which was attended by other members of the royal family, although the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who recently became first time parents abstained from attending. After the relatively calm first day of formalities, and affirming loyalties, the second day kicked off the explosive politics and protests.

Brits Protest

With 18 months left before the US elections, the people of London spoke loud and proud regarding their continued beliefs the President should be impeached, prosecuted, dumped, and his statements in the past of sexual escapades, regarding the People's Princess, Diana, Princess of Wales, has resonated deeply in the hearts of those who remember her, including her two sons, HRH Prince William and HRH Prince Harry.

During the time President Trump was meeting with outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May, Londoners were not silent regarding their feelings of the President. He has stoked the fire with his consistent disparaging, deception and fear mongering rhetoric which worked so well against 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, as he continually enters into match-point strikes against London's Mayor Sadiq Khan.


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Trump also announced he snubbed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, which gauging from the political mood, could be the biggest endorsement Corbyn could receive in the eyes of the people.

D-Day Anniversary

June 6, 1944. On the beaches of Normandy, France, Operation Overlord, an Allied invasion led by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had secretly prepared for over a year, for this night, the moment, when the free world was poised on the shoulders of American boys, barely out of their teens, who understood liberation from Hitler may mean the ultimate sacrifice.

Members of the media have spent time this past week interviewing surviving soldiers, who spoke with sharp memories of that day, the day when essentially time stood still, and amphibious units came ashore, with a single objective "to get off the beach."

Storming the beaches of Normandy, mission named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword, which designated landing beaches along the French coastline. On that day, the end of the war began, 9,000 US soldiers died, along with allied troops from France, Canada and British.

French President Emmanuel Macron also gathered in Normandy spoke in English, to those surviving D-Day landing veterans, "On behalf of my nation I just want to say thank you."

Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, HRH Prince Harry, Dike of Sussex, exiting Prime Minster Theresa May, Canadian Prime Minter Edouard Phillippe, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump to pay tribute to those who stormed the beaches beginning the liberation of France from the tyranny of evil.

From Vice President Pence's Speech at the National D-Day Memorial, in Bedford, Virginia

On June 6, 1944, they embarked on Operation Overlord, on what General Eisenhower called the "Great Crusade."  They embarked with "the eyes of the world" upon them, and they sailed across the channel to the beaches of Normandy, carried aloft, as their general said, by the "hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere."

They knew the odds.  They knew the enemy.  They knew the enemy would fight savagely to defend that crucial stronghold.  Every soldier who stepped ashore was, as Private First Class Chuck Neighbor said, "a visitor to hell."

But the men of D-Day pressed forward.  In the chaos of battle, the bravery of men like Private First Class Hilman Prestridge and Private First Class Bill Sisk shone through.

There were men like Carroll Reeves and Corporal Rover Aubrey, supplying and equipping this band of brothers as they headed for the beaches. There was Second Class Petty Officer Samuel Berry, leaping from his landing craft to swim ashore.  And Second Class Petty Officer Vincent Kordack, who was caring for the wounded as bullets whistled by.

All of them risked all to win a great victory.  And all of them, by God's grace, are here with us today. 

To these and other D-Day veterans among us, I say: Gentlemen, you honor us with your presence.  And I want to assure you, we see you not just as you are, but as you were.  And seeing that, we marvel that the courage that you showed as young men when you stormed the beaches and faced the shadow of death without fear.


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As President Trump said today in Normandy to those who fought on D-Day, in his words, "You are among the very greatest Americans who will ever live.  You are the pride of our nation…and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts." 

And today, we also think of others from this very community who were among your ranks on that fateful day.  Forty-four boys who had never strayed far from home mustered out to England, and some to eternity.  They were hometown folk who became national heroes.  And they will forever be remembered to history as the Bedford Boys. 

Since the earliest days of our Republic, Bedford — like every other community in this land — has given its finest to defend America in battle.  But for Bedford, D-Day was different.

While most of this town was still asleep in bed, First Lieutenant Ray Nance was racing across the sands, dodging mortar rounds and tracer fire.  While the morning bells of the Presbyterian Church were ringing, Private First-Class Dickie Overstreet was nursing his wounds, along the very sea wall he had been determined to reach.

While 50 women worked late in the night at the county library, rolling 9,000 bandages for our sons and brothers overseas, Technical Sergeant Ray Stevens had already fallen after leading his men onto Omaha Beach.  It was only a few days later that his twin brother, Roy, found Ray's dog tags on a cross in a makeshift graveyard not far from the beach they'd both landed on.

That night, the people of Bedford and all of America heard President Roosevelt ask Almighty God to "let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come."  And they did come.

On D-Day, 20 Bedford Boys with the 116th Infantry stormed Omaha beach and fell in the defense of freedom.  That such a small town would make such a sacrifice seems almost beyond belief.  As the author Alex Kershaw wrote, "Theirs is the story of one small American town that went to war and died on Omaha beach."

To honor their sacrifice and the sacrifice of all those brave Americans who died on that day, this National D-Day Memorial was constructed here in Bedford as a tribute to all who gave the last full measure of devotion on the Longest Day.

It is a profound honor to stand with you on this day at this memorial.  But I think all of you gathered here know the true memorial to the Bedford Boys and all the courageous Americans who charged the beaches of France 75 years ago today, is our freedom — the freedom they fought and sacrificed so much to defend. 

So God bless the Bedford Boys and all the 9,388 Americans who lie in that quiet field overlooking the beaches they took 75 years ago today.  God bless all the heroes forged on that day of days who fought and came home to the families and the land they love.

And on this 75th Anniversary of D-Day, on behalf of a grateful nation, to those brave veterans gathered here who fought so long ago, and to all those looking on from glory, we say one more time: Thank you for your service.  Thank you for our freedom. 

PM Hopefuls Implode

With Theresa May now a private citizen, stepping down June 8, the field to replace her as grown exponentially to eleven confirmed and another ten expected to add their names to the mix by the end of the filing date on June 10, 2019.

As politics have proven anything but usual the two front runners, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, are both facing revelations of past issues. Gove has admitted to experimental use of cocaine on more than one occasion during his journalist days. He has been causal and forthright, and attempted to counter the potential derailment with remembrances of the day and times. Crisis communications would probably call for him to direct the press and get in front of this problematic issue.

Johnson, who is American born from New York City, and also a journalist, is aligning himself with all the right issues, except he is attempting to extort a better deal with the European Union with threats of withholding of funds. Withholding never works. He has been compared to Donald Trump and been called the Brit's Trump. He indicated he hung up on the U.S. President.

Unless he has worked out a hidden exit package in an effort to undermine former PM Theresa May, then his hard ball strategy will backfire as he attempts to back the EU leadership against the wall. With Brexit, the UK is no longer in the driver's seat and unfortunately, they failed to realize the power with the EU is only available with membership and they gave up their substantial power when they initiated Article 55.

Manafort Headed to Rikers

Former Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort has been transferred to Riker's Island, New York City's notoriously violent jail, from a minimum-security prison in Pennsylvania, where he has been serving his federal sentence for foreign lobbying, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

Manafort who will be held in solitary confinement for his own protection, is expected to be tried for crimes which occurred in the state of New York and not on the federal level, which makes a presidential pardon impossible.

Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance requested Manafort's transfer, which was facilitated by New York State judge. Vance said at the time of the grand jury's indictment that "no one is above the law."

Riker's, which houses both male and female prisoners in separate blocks, is known for extreme violent uprisings within its population directed at each other and the guards and proven systemic patterns of prison rapes.


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The facility, which is expected to close in 2027, has been the processing center for New York City's most notorious criminals over the last fifty years including David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer, and Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon.

Minneapolis Cop Sentenced

Mohammad Noor, the Minneapolis Somalian-American police officer who shot and killed Justine Ruszczyk, an Australian living with her fiancé, after she telephone police to report a possible sexual assault, was sentenced to 12 ½ years for his crime.

Noor admitted discharging his weapon and killing Ms. Ruszczyk. He was found guilty of third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Just shy of two years ago on the night of July 17, 2017, Justine Ruszczyk, a transplanted Aussie, who was preparing for her upcoming nuptials to Dom Damond, a Minneapolis resident, heard what sounded like a scream in the alley behind her home.

She telephoned her fiancé to ask him what he thought she should do. He replied, without hesitation, call the police.

She did. Running up to the police car to greet officers and explain where she had heard the noise, she possibly raised her hand to point, and according to testimony, Noor, a force veteran, saw her raise her empty hand from the passenger side of the vehicle, and said in court documents, "he felt fear" and his response to the emotion was to drew his weapon.

He fired a single shot past his horrified partner who was driving. He has said he exited his vehicle after the shooting and walked over to Ms. Ruszczyk and watched her dying and realized the gravity of his mistake.

Minutes later she would die.

Dr. John, Musical Genius, Dies of Heart Attack

Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr., better known as Dr. John, the New Orleans Jazz, blues, R&B, and boogie-woogie musician, singer, songwriter and producer with a gravelly voice and Dixieland roots passed away this week after suffering a heart attack. He was 77.

Mixing a gumbo of musical genres in his style, Dr. John a six-time Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll hall of Fame Inductee, played with such greats as Van Morrison, The Band, Eric Clapton, Joe Walsh, Bob Segar and Ringo Starr and his All-Star Band.

A notice on his official website, Nitetripper.com, read, "Toward the break of day on June 6, 2019, iconic music legend Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr., professionally known as Dr. John, passed away of a heart attack. As a Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, a six-time Grammy winner, songwriter, composer, producer and performer he created a unique blend of music which carried his hometown, New Orleans, at its' heart, as it was always in his heart. The family thanks all whom have shared his unique musical journey and requests privacy at this time. Memorial arrangements will be announced in due course.

For more information on President Donald Trump www.whitehouse.gov.

Sources: whitehouse.gov.

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