Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club -- or the Winter White House, as he prefers to call it -- may not be the Palm Beach social-calendar hot spot this winter. The president can haul down all the foreign heads of state that he wishes -- as long as Congress agrees to increase the Secret Service budget currently busted by the extravagant lifestyle of America's self-appointed royal family. Charity fundraiser event cancellations are fast and furious after the president's sensational, intemperate comments about Charlottesville at a Trump Tower infrastructure news conference gone rogue last Tuesday.

"The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach is a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and celebrating the unique architectural and cultural heritage of Palm Beach," the group explained in a Facebook post on Saturday, announcing its decision to withdraw from Mar-a-Lago as the venue for the event. "Given the current environment surrounding Mar-a-Lago, we have made the decision to move our annual dinner dance."

On Sunday the Palm Beach Zoo & Conservation Society announced it too would be moving its upcoming event away from the Trump property.

"We have an unyielding commitment to inspire people to act on behalf of wildlife and the natural world," said Zoo CEO & President Andrew Aiken in a statement Sunday. "After thoughtful consideration by Zoo leadership, we have decided it is important that we not allow distractions to deter us from our mission and culture.”

As of Sunday, 14 of the scheduled 16 major fundraising events at Mar-a-Lago have been cancelled. The Palm Beach Police Foundation's annual Policeman Ball and the Palm Beach County Republican Party's annual Lincoln Day Dinner. Other cancellations include the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the American Cancer Society, American Friends of Magen David Adom, and the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity.

Laurel Baker, executive director of the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, of which Mar-a-Lago is a member, went public last Thursday asking charities to do a moral gut check before doing business at the club.

"Look at your mission statement, and [evaluate] if you still defend Trump...see if this is really the direction you want to go," Baker, who's been on the executive committee of the chamber of commerce for 17 years, advised.

A chamber of commerce works to promote its members' interests, but Baker says that it's her duty to take a stand when she feels the values of her community are under attack.

She added: ”Personally, I do not feel that supporting him, directly or indirectly, speaks well of any organization. We're looking for integrity, we're looking for honesty."

Since our Monday post, Gateway for Cancer Research decided to withdraw from Mar-a-Lago as the venue for its St. Patrick Day event in March 2018. The Unicorn Children's Foundation, based in Boca Raton, cancelled plans to hold a fundraiser luncheon at the club. The group anticipated that its event would have raised $160,000. “At this time, we are exploring options to address this $160,000 shortfall or we will need to cut funding support from several critical programs and services,” Sharon Alexander, the group's chief executive said.

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Aug 18, 2017

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Aug 18, 2017

Democratic Congressional candidate Amy McGrath, who burst into AOC's pages with a stellar opening statement about her career and Kentucky District candidacy called 'Told Me' has sent a second political volley in her campaign to unseat Republican Andy Barr, a strong supporter of President Trump.

Amy McGrath Was in an F-18 on 9/11

The gripping ad grabbed me by the throat because I watched the WTC fall in New York on 9/11. Three of the terrorists were my neighbors, living three blocks away from my Jersey City loft. I regularly walked by their small mosque, and I stood with them on the waterfront on Sept. 11, watching the burning towers fall.

Standing on a runway, Amy McGrath's 9/11 drama begins: "It was September 11th, 2001" she recalls, "the second tower of the World Trade Center had been hit. And all of us stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar were ordered to immediately report to the base." Even though she was "just out of fighter attack training" McGrath was the only one to get to her military base before the gates were closed. Amy sat in her cockpit for four long hours, ready for takeoff in an F-18 fighter jet capable of shooting down a commercial airliner.

Depending on just how many planes were high-jacked and where they were headed, Amy McGrath could have been commanded to end the flight. An order from President Bush demanding that she bring down her own fellow-Americans by bombing a commercial airliner could not be refused. American Airlnes Flight 77, had already struck the western side of the Pentagon, just outside Washington, DC.

The fourth hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was off course, headed also for DC -- very probably the White House, the Washington Monument or Congress. Very probably Flight 93 would have been Amy's target, had the passengers and crew not rushed the Al-Qaeda hijackers bringing the plane down themselves, crashing it into a field in rural Pennsylvania.

"All I could think of was, this is not what I signed up for,'" she says about her four-hour wait, but "the military answers to a chain of command." Pausing, she continues, "the power of the commander-in-chief is absolute. There are no safeguards in situations like that, or a nuclear standoff. And with this president, that is concerning."

McGrath points to congressional Republicans, each of whom, in her words, "has to make a choice. Standing up to the president may not be what they signed up for, but when the president is in solidarity with white supremacists and Nazis, those members of Congress have to stand up and tell him he's wrong."

Her opponent has failed that test, saying that Rep. Andy Barr has failed his test. "He has yet to condemn the president on anything ... It reminds of a book I've read to my kids, someone needs to be willing to say the emperor has no clothes."

"That's why I'm running for Congress against Andy Barr in Kentucky," she says.

A Risky Move?

Some in Kentucky have said that McGrath is making a risky move here, playing to a national audience with her criticism of Trump. But her second ad debut coincided with Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker's scathing criticism of President Trump.

Referring to Trump's response to the violence that came after white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., Corker said, "The President has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. He also recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation. He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great and what it is today."

Corker also warned that without that, "our nation is going to go through great peril" as he called for "radical change" at the White House.

Corker is a respected GOP voice on Capitol Hill, serving as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was said to be on the shortlist of possible running mates for Trump in 2016, before Trump chose then Indiana governor Mike Pence.

The Tennessee Republican leader also said that the president needs to reflect on his role in the country and "move beyond himself, move way beyond himself, and move to a place where daily he's waking up thinking about what's best for our nation."

The word 'authentic' was totally overused to compliment Trump and criticize Hillary in the 2016 presidential campaign. Still, Amy McGrath comes off like the real deal in both of her campaign videos. And she makes me cry, so what does that tell you!! ~ Anne

Related: She's Got Grit: Living her own courage from the F/A-18 to a bid for Congress by Shannon H. Polson