Editor’s Note

A Visit to the Museum

Thank you for coming and welcome to the Donald J. Trump Freedom Museum and Patriot Theme ParkTM! My name is Natasha and I’ll be your guide. Here we tell the triumphal story of a humble man of modest means, a self-made man, who battled skeptics, doubters, haters, socialists, those with pre-existing conditions, Crooked Hilary, fake news, that POW loser John McCain, Antifa, world leaders who laughed behind his back, and the Deep State on his way to making America great again! And fantastic ratings! Not to mention sparking a heroic patriot uprising on January 6, 2021 in protest of a rigged election, stolen from our dear leader by Sleepy Creepy Joe. This second American Revolution, destined to restore real democracy, is being violently suppressed by the Deep State to this very day. Redblooded Americans have been censored and driven underground—into little spider holes, like terrorists. Won’t you help a patriot move out of his mother’s basement by donating to our Freedom Fighters Fund today? Just look for @TrumpCorporation on Venmo!

Before we begin the tour, I’d like to remind everyone…Yes, a question from the back? No, this is not a presidential library. While the tradition of presidents donating their papers to the federal government dates back to Herbert Hoover and the Presidential Records Act of 1978 enshrined into law that presidential records are the property of the US government, this is not a presidential library. The Donald J. Trump Freedom Museum and Patriot Theme ParkTM is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Corporation. We are grateful to our patrons, the Russian government, for allowing us to build this monument to the greatest US president of all on the outskirts of Moscow, in Mother Russia, a country Trump loved second only to America. Maybe even more at times! Just don’t tell that to Robert Mueller! I joke, I joke. Let’s commence our tour. One note of caution: Those sensitive to Axe body spray may want to take precautions as Eric Trump was in the building just a little while ago.

On your left, you see a replica of the log cabin President Trump grew up in in the wilds of Jamaica Estates, Queens, a land at the frontier between New York City and suburbia. When President Trump left home to strike out on his own and make his fortune, his father packed a measly $1 million in a satchel and sent his son off to strike it rich! Again!

The photograph on your right is of a very important man in President’s Trump’s life, Dr. Larry Braunstein. This podiatrist thankfully diagnosed the bone spurs in President Trump’s heels that had been bedeviling him so and led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam. A question? Yes, I believe Dr. Braunstein was Jewish. No, they don’t all have visible horns. Some of them choose to shave them down or wear a hat.

In this small glass case are the written records of the Trump Administration. Yes, that’s correct, there are only two documents. We were hoping to print out the 34,000 @realDonaldTrump tweets issued from the start of his candidacy until he was deplatformed by the evil Jack Dorsey just days before he was forced out of office. We even created a taxonomy for them. Categories included: Late-Night Ranting, Score Settling, Firings, Petty Grievance Airing, Calls to Sedition…The gentleman in the Camp Auschwitz hoodie: Please lower your gun, I’m only joking. All President Trump Tweets were perfect, like the call to Ukraine.

This is probably a good time to remind you that while the Donald J. Trump Freedom Museum and Patriot Theme ParkTM is an open-carry museum, we ask that no firearms be discharged in the museum proper. Please hold your fire until the end of the tour when you can vent your frustration on the LibTard Firing Range, featuring a variety of classic President Trump targets, including Rosie O’Donnell, James Comey, the traitor Mike Pence, and the media.

But back to the documents: The first is the Kenyan birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama. Just take a look at how legit that is. Yes, White-Out was commonly used by bureaucrats in Nairobi in the early `60s. The other paper is the helpful memo on the Insurrection Act and declaring martial law that patriot and My Pillow founder Mike Lindell brought to the president after the popular uprising on January 6, 2021. Note that the papers are slightly burned at the edges. In the chaotic last week of the presidency, many staffers took the sarcastic president’s directive to “burn it all before Pelosi gets it” as literal, much like some Americans didn’t get the joke when President Trump told them to inject bleach as a coronavirus treatment. Americans can be so gullible, amirite?

Up ahead is one of our interactive exhibits, commemorating the visit President Trump made to save Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Join in the fun as an animatronic Trump throws rolls of paper towels into the crowd. This is a really fun one for the kids!

A new ride we’ve just opened here on the left is the Ivanka & Donald Tunnel of Love Ride. While President Trump loved all his children (maybe not Tiffany), he loved his daughter Ivanka best. As he told the assembled hosts on “The View” in 2006: “She does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” This way please for all the fathers and daughters who want to deepen their relationship.

This alcove on the right contains a collection of the spines of mainstream Republicans who tried to use President Trump’s connection to his base for their own political ends. It’s a wonderfully diverse group of vertebrae, from moderates like Susan Collins to fawning lickspittles like Lindsey Graham to people who should have known better like William Barr. This gallery brings together the largest display of prisoner skeletons since the “Bodies” exhibition.

That’s the end of my tour, but there’s loads more to discover here at Donald J. Trump Freedom Museum and Patriot Theme ParkTM. I encourage you all to visit the Charlottesville diorama commemorating the Day of Khaki Solidarity. And don’t forget to see some of the actual cages that were used to house migrant children on the Mexican border. While these chain-link enclosures were built by Obama, I think we can all agree that President Trump put them to better use.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour, please exit through the gift shop. Our featured product this week is a model of Mount Rushmore, with President Trump featured alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. And there’s also a sale on mittens for the small-handed.

Dasvidaniya!

Women & Children First

Children at play at the YWCA of Ulster County in Kingston.

MacKenzie Scott Donates $1M to the Ulster County YWCA

Last March, at the beginning of the quarantine, the YWCA of Ulster County hoped to stay open and promised to continue their programs and services to the community for as long as they could. They kept that promise and never closed, but unfortunately many people who were now working from home didn’t need their early childhood programs. Lack of attendance seriously impacted the YWCA’s bottom line. “It was an enormous financial hit, with the programs being reduced by 75 percent,” says Susan Mack, executive director of the YWCA of Ulster County.

Worried a little about the future of the YWCA, Mack then received a series of phone calls in December that changed everything. “It was about an anonymous donor who was considering us as a recipient of an undisclosed donation amount,” she says. “The donor wanted her privacy protected, but when I found out we were definitely a recipient and the amount of the gift I was speechless.”

The YWCA received a $1 million donation.

The donor was MacKenzie Scott, an author, advocate, philanthropist, and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Scott is the 18th wealthiest person on the planet, with a net worth of nearly $60 billion. Scott’s commitment was part of the Giving Pledge, created by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, which was an open invitation for billionaires, or those who would be if not for their giving, to publicly commit to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. In 2020, Scott gave over $4 billion in gifts to 384 organizations across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC, to support organizations filling basic needs like food banks and some nonprofits addressing long-term systemic inequities deepened by the crisis. The YWCA of Ulster County was the only organization in the Hudson Valley to receive a gift from Scott.

“I was very, very grateful,” says Mack, who calls it an “unprecedented donation.” “I know that Mackenzie Scott is supporting YWCAs in general, and we were one of several that received a gift.”

To help the community before receiving the donation, the YWCA offered tuition forgiveness to the members who couldn’t attend and received a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program that helped to keep their doors open for a bit. During this time, Mack says, the Families Now program was busier than ever. “The program provides home visits and phone visits to families who are in imminent danger of losing custody of their kids due to poor parenting skills, abuse, or neglect, and that program was phenomenally busy during the county closures,” says Mack. “Our home visitors continue to do in-person visits outside of the home, so that they could physically see the children and the families. The number of phone calls probably tripled. So our staff provided many services during the closures and we’ve had to come up with creative options to provide our other services.”

Mack explains that some of the donation will be set aside as a reserve. “We need to be responsible and sustainable and to be able to continue to serve our communities and our mission is to empower women and fight racism, so all of our decisions will be driven by that mission,” she says. “It’s an unexpected windfall, and we are going to use it mindfully, likely to support the growth of existing programs and, possibly, to pilot sustainable mission driven programs.”

In 2023, the YWCA Ulster County will celebrate its 100th anniversary and Mack is certain they will be strong. “We’re going to be completing our mission,” says Mack. “Let’s work together. Let’s build on what we have.”

Mack also recognizes the importance of listening to the community’s wants and needs. “It’s essential to our mission to hear the voices of our community when we are planning our paths forward,” she said. “I welcome emails to tell me your ideas.” Mack can be contacted at info@ywcaulstercounty.org.