Melania Trump had a big to-do yesterday announcing her kids' project called "Be Best". Aside from not understanding what that means (why not "Be the Best" or "Be Your Best Self" or something that made grammatical sense) it turns out her project isn't even about empowering kids or encouraging them to strive and succeed -- it's a guide book for parents on ways to restrict their kids' online activity.

But putting all that aside, there's this: New allegations of plagiarism.

Compare Melania's 17 page pamphlet called "Talking with Kids About Being Online"to this 15 page pamphlet written in 2013, NET CETERA: Chatting with Kids About Being Online. Here is the Net Cetera web page which is still up. It's also available on another government website here, from 2014.

So Melania added a page with her photo and a handwritten note, changed the word "chatting" to "talking", and takes credit for a new program on how parents can restrict their kids internet and social media use.

Sorry, Melania, I'm not impressed. [More...]

Remember Dr. Harold Bornstein, Trump's former physician who proclaimed candidate Trump "astonishingly healthy" ("If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency)? NBC reports he's talking now about how he felt violated ("raped" was the word he used)when Trump former bodyguard Keith Schiller and Trump Org. lawyer Alan Garten showed up at his office in Feb. 2017 and took all of Trump's medical files.

In an exclusive interview in his Park Avenue office, Bornstein told NBC News that he felt "raped, frightened and sad" when Keith Schiller and another "large man" came to his office to collect the president's records on the morning of Feb. 3, 2017. At the time, Schiller, who had long worked as Trump's bodyguard, was serving as director of Oval Office operations at the White House.

"They must have been here for 25 or 30 minutes. It created a lot of chaos," Bornstein said, who described the incident as frightening.

Why is he talking now? Because he's delighted that Ronny Jackson is no longer going to be White House physician (a position he had wanted): [More...]

The New York Times obtained a list of the questions Robert Mueller wants to ask Donald Trump. NPR reports:

Most of the questions The Times printed focus on whether Trump may have obstructed justice or tried to frustrate the FBI's Russia investigation, including whether he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to lay off then-national security adviser Mike Flynn; leaned on others to pressure Comey; why he fired Comey and more.

I like the question about his calls to James Comey in March, 2017: [More...]

I'm reading the news but not finding much to write about. I'm beyond sick of Donald Trump.

Here's a new open thread, all topics welcome.

Trump attorney Michael Cohen has asked the judge presiding over Stormy Daniels civil lawsuit to stay proceedings in the case because he is the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI and Southern District of New York, as he would invoke his 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. His Declaration is here.

The Bill Cosby case has gone to the jury.

Time for a new open thread, all topics welcome.

Bernie Sanders has come up with a new plan for the government to hire every worker who wants a job at the rate of at least $15 an hour, plus health and retirement benefits.

Sanders's jobs guarantee would fund hundreds of projects throughout the United States aimed at addressing priorities such as infrastructure, care giving, the environment, education and other goals. Under the job guarantee, every American would be entitled to a job under one of these projects or receive job training to be able to do so, according to an early draft of the proposal.

... the projects would hire workers at a minimum salary of $15 an hour with paid family and medical leave, and offer the same retirement, health, and sick and annual leave benefits as other federal employees.

Can such an idea work? It makes me think of the Netflix series Lillyhammer with Steve Van Zandt, about Norway. [More...]

McClatchy is reporting through unnamed sources that Mueller has evidence Michael Cohen went to Prague. Cohen famously denied the allegation at the time.

Read through the McClatchy article and see what it says the import would be for Trump and Cohen if it turns out that Cohen was untruthful when he denied he went to Prague.

Also, today, Cohen dropped his defamation lawsuit against Buzzfeed.

Tomorrow will be a remembrance day for the media. The second half of April is one of the worst in history.

April 19th is the anniversary of the WACO siege and the Oklahoma City bombing. On April 15, the Boston Marathon bombing occurred. April 20 is the anniversary of the Columbine shootings.

In other news, thee entire island of Puerto Rico is without power after a blast at its power station.

Then there is this news: 'It smells like death:' Alabama endures New York 'poop train' [More...]

Raul Castro is resigning as President of Cuba. His replacement (the sole nominee) will be First Vice President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez.

Wednesday’s announcement confirms the long-held expectation that Diaz-Canel would take over from Castro in a transition meant to ensure that the country’s single-party system outlasts the aging revolutionaries who created it.

The nomination must be now approved by the 604 delegates attending the National Assembly, which always approves nominations with total or near-total unanimity.

Raul Castro will remain head of the Communist party. Diaz-Canel is expected to ensure that Cuba remains a one party system. He's no reformer.

Former first lady Barbara Bush has died at the age of 92.

The Washington Post obituary is here.

I don't have anything to add to the news. If you do, here's a space to comment in. Please keep in mind that TalkLeft has a policy of not speaking ill of the dead on the occasion of their death.

Starbucks announced today it will close all of its 8,000 stores and its affilaiate stores for an afternoon next month during which more than 175,000 employees will undergo racial bias training.

The curriculum to be designed by nationally recognized experts and will be available for other companies to use:

The curriculum will be developed with guidance from several national and local experts confronting racial bias, including Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative; Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; Heather McGhee, president of Demos; former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder; and Jonathan Greenblatt, ceo of the Anti-Defamation League. Starbucks will involve these experts in monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of the measures we undertake.

I've met Bryan Stevenson and have listened to him speak several times. He is beyond top notch. Good for Starbucks, not only for recognizing the problem, but engaging in meaningful dialogue on how to correct it. And for offering to share the training with other companies. [More...]