Bytes: More Trumpia and Some Trumble

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'Please, sir, I want some more.'

- Oliver in Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

Unlike the master, who hits Oliver with a ladle for having the temerity to ask for more, it is more you shall have, dear and faithful readers.

This begins a week (or more) of Number Two’s (and more) of posts where I have promised follow ups.

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More Trump Facts and Trivia . . .

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Donald Trump bought the operating company, Miss Universe, Inc., in 1996 from ITT Corp. Trump struck a broadcasting arrangement with CBS, then in 2002 entered into a joint venture with NBC, which in 2003 outbid the other networks for the TV rights. From 2003 to 2014, the pageant was broadcast in the US on NBC. In 2015, after Trump made statements about illegal immigrants from Mexico in his U.S. presidential campaign kickoff speech, NBC ended its business relationship with him and stated that it would no longer air the Miss Universe or Miss USA pageants on its networks. Trump bought NBC's share of the Miss Universe Organization, becoming its sole owner, then three days later sold the entire company to the WME/IMG talent agency.

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He hosted and co-produced NBC reality television series The Apprentice, from 2004 to 2015.

“We had tremendous success on The Apprentice and, when I ran for president, I had to leave the show. And they hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger to take my place. And we know how that turned out. The ratings went right down the tubes. It’s been a total disaster. . . . . and I want to just pray for Arnold, if we can. For those ratings. Okay?”

- Donald Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast, 02.02.2017

"Hey Donald, I have a great idea. Why don't we switch jobs? You take over TV, cause you're such an expert in ratings. And I take over your job, so that people can finally sleep comfortably again."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger, in response

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Trump is the oldest person to ever become a first-term president, at the age of 70, surpassing Ronald Reagan who was 69 years of age upon winning the 1980 election.

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Trump married his first wife, Czech model Ivana ~~Humpalot~~ Zelníčková, in 1977. She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1988.

With Ivana

Ivana: My name is Ivana, Ivana Humpalot.

Austin: Come again?

Ivana: Ivana Humpalot.

Austin: Well I vana toilet made out of solid gold, but it's just not in the cards now is it?

- Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged me

By early 1990, Trump’s troubled marriage to Ivana and affair with actress Marla Maples had been reported in the tabloid press. Ivana Trump was granted an uncontested divorce in 1990, on the grounds that Trump’s treatment of her, such as his affair with Maples, had been “cruel and inhuman”. In 1992, he successfully sued Ivana for violating a gag clause in their divorce agreement by disclosing facts about him in her book. In 2015, Ivana said that she and Donald “are the best of friends”.

Ivana Trump in First Wives Club

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Trump and Maples married in December 1993 at New York City's Plaza Hotel in a ceremony reportedly attended by a thousand guests, including Rosie O'Donnell and O. J. Simpson. They separated in May 1997 and divorced June 8, 1999.

Ewww fact: Maples has been quoted as saying that sex with Donald Trump was the best she had ever had.

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Born in the former Yugoslavia, Melania Trump became a permanent resident of the United States in 2001 and a citizen in 2006. She is the second foreign-born First Lady of the United States, following Louisa Adams in 1825.

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Trump has been nicknamed “The Donald” since Ivana referred to him as such in a 1989 Spy magazine cover story:

The Don, she calls him. (“You know how she always put the before people’s names?” says the wife of a Trump Organization vice president. “Well, one day she was all flustered, and she needed to talk to the vice president of administration, Richard Wilhelm. She went tearing through the halls of the executive offices shrieking, ‘Where’s the Dick? I need the Dick now!’”)

Some years later Ivana commented:

“As most people know, English isn’t my first language, in fact it’s my fourth. When I came to live in New York, I really had to learn the language from the beginning almost. Some things come easily, some things don’t. And for whatever reason, probably because I was going at my usual turbo speed, I started putting ‘The’ in front of most people’s names. Yes, you know the outcome — ‘The Donald’ just slipped off the tongue, and now it seems to be making its ways to the political history books.”

It caught on and came to be increasingly used by people wanting to create humor around Trump.

In 1999, Ivana attempted to claim a trademark on “The Donald” for a line of lotions, after-shaves and other toiletries. She told the New York Observer at the time that she was filing on behalf of her son, Donald Jr. — but her move drew an angry condemnation from Donald, who filed several competing claims for the trademark. Both parties eventually abandoned their claims,

Trump poses with eagle named "Uncle Sam" in Time Magazine's cover story.

He really did pose with the eagle:

http://time.com/4003904/donald-trump-bald-eagle/

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Some bonus material about Trump and our own Trumble:

The media has been reporting a heated telephone conversation between Oz PM Malcolm Turnbull and US Pres Trump over Pres Obama’s deal to take 1,250 boat people for resettlement in the US. Like Trump, I cannot fathom why Obama agreed to the deal. Trump reportedly hung up on our PM. The next day White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, attempting to restore harmony, spoke of the matter and twice referred to “Prime Minister Trumble”.