;)
The Commentariat -- January 24, 2017
Afternoon Update:
Madeline Conway of Politico: "White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday defended President Donald Trump for continuing to claim that millions of people voted illegally in the November election, despite numerous fact checks and other studies that have debunked the theory. 'The president does believe that, he has stated that before,' Spicer told reporters gathered for Tuesday's daily briefing in the White House. 'I think he's stated his concerns of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have presented to him.'... After referencing unnamed evidence on Tuesday, reporters pressed Spicer to specify on what studies Trump has based his belief of voter fraud. Spicer cited a Pew Research study, but its author, David Becker, has previously denied that the report backs up Trump's claim.... Lindsey Graham ... told CNN that the claim is the 'most inappropriate thing for the president to say without proof' and warned that Trump's actions are 'going to erode his ability to govern this country if he does not stop it.'" CW: Trump does not have an actual press secretary; instead he has a lie deflector. ...
I think there have been studies; there was one that came out of Pew in 2008 that showed 14 percent of people who have voted were not citizens. There are other studies that were presented to him. -- Sean Spicer, news briefing, Jan. 24, 2017
Spicer cited repeatedly debunked research to support Trump's claim that millions of people voted illegally during the 2016 presidential election. These studies do not support Trump's Four-Pinocchio claims of 'millions' of people voting illegally -- as we've covered here, here, here, here and here.... Despite Trump's repeated claims, his attorneys stated there was no evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 election. -- Michelle Lee of the Washington Post
Steven Mufson & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Trump signed executive orders Tuesday clearing the way for the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines to move forward. He also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, lamenting the existing 'incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.' 'The regulatory process in this country has become a tangled up mess,' he said. It remained unclear how Trump's order would restart the pipeline projects or expedite environmental reviews. Many of those reviews are statutory and the legislation that created them cannot be swept aside by an executive order. The White House did not immediately release texts of the orders." CW: President Trump also refused to acknowledge he had not been anointed Holy American Emperor. ...
... David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement: "The CEO of the company that owns the Dakota Access pipeline, Kelcy Warren of Energy Transfer Partners, has donated almost $7 million to GOP super PACS, including one that supported Trump, and to individual Republican candidates and the RNC, according to The Washington Post.... Trump had a financial interest in the Dakota Access pipeline, but he may have sold it off.... Trump misleadingly on Tuesday claimed the Keystone XL pipeline will produce 28,000 jobs. The pipelines will not, as many of their supporters claim, create 'thousands' of jobs -- those jobs are temporary. Keystone is expected to create just 40 or so permanent jobs.... Trump earlier Tuesday lied, claiming he had won environmental awards, which The Washington Post disputes." -- CW ...
I'm a very big person when it comes to the environment. I have received awards on the environment. -- President Trump, remarks during a meeting with business leaders, January 23
We know of one award by the Metropolitan Golf Association, given in 2007 to his golf course in Bedminster, N.J. The golf course was later cited for environmental violations. The White House pointed us to a self-published book by Trump's former environmental consultant. The only award mentioned in that book was from New Jersey Audubon -- but the group denied it ever gave an award to Trump, the Trump National club in Bedminster or any of its employees. Here is one award that we'll give to Trump. It's not related to the environment -- and he already has many of them -- but we present Trump with his first four-Pinocchio rating as president. -- Michelle Lee of the Washington Post
*****
Washington Post: "The announcement of 2,500 new settlement homes in the West Bank signals a new approach by Israel in response to the election of President Trump. The administration of former president Barack Obama opposed the expansion of settlements. This is a developing story. It will be updated." -- CW
Comey's Reward. Michael Schmidt & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, told his top agents from around the country that he had been asked by President Trump to stay on the job running the federal government's top law enforcement agency, according to people familiar with the matter. A decision to retain Mr. Comey would spare the president another potentially bruising confirmation battle. It also would keep Mr. Comey at the center of the F.B.I.'s investigation into several Trump associates and their potential ties with the Russian government." -- CW
Nelson Scwartz & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "President Trump summoned the titans of American business to the White House on Monday for what was billed as a 'listening session,' but it was the new president who delivered the loudest message: Bring back domestic manufacturing jobs, or face punishing tariffs and other penalties. The contrast between Mr. Trump's talk and the actual behavior of corporate America, however, underscored the tectonic forces he was fighting in trying to put his blue-collar base back to work in a sector that has been shedding jobs for decades. Many of the chief executives Mr. Trump met with have slashed domestic employment in recent years. What is more, their companies have frequently shut factories in the United States even as they have opened new ones overseas. Mr. Trump said he would use tax policy, among other means, to deter companies from shifting work abroad. -- CW ...
... Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "As corporate executives around the globe try to understand the implications of the Trump administration on their businesses, they seem to be having an almost bipolar reaction: a euphoric sense that regulations and taxes could soon be lowered -- which would likely increase their profits and paychecks -- yet a simultaneous anxiety that they could become a target of one of the president's Twitter tirades, which could undo their businesses or possibly their careers." -- CW
Illegitimate Prez Again Claims Illegitimate Voters Did Him in. Michael Shear & Emmarie Heutteman of the New York Times: "President Trump used his first official meeting with congressional leaders on Monday to gripe about his loss of the popular vote, falsely telling the lawmakers that he would have won a majority if millions of illegal immigrants had not voted against him. The claim, which he has made before on Twitter, has been judged to be untrue by numerous fact-checkers. But the new president's willingness to bring it up at Monday's White House reception in the State Dining Room is an indication that he remains focused on his election.... Mr. Trump ... fell almost three million votes short of Hillary Clinton in the popular vote. That reality appears to have bothered the president since Election Day, prompting him to repeatedly complain that adversaries were trying to undermine his legitimacy.... Representative Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland ... said on CNN that Mr. Trump also talked about the size of the crowd for his inauguration speech. 'It was a huge crowd, a magnificent crowd. I haven't seen such a crowd as big as this,' Mr. Hoyer told CNN, quoting Mr. Trump.... Referring to Democrats, [Trump] said, 'They said they'd never been over to the White House for anything like this before.'" CW: Right. Anything like the POTUS standing there & lying to their faces. And you can bet not one of them stood up to him and called out his lies. ...
... Abby Phillip & Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "... Trump spent about 10 minutes at the start of the bipartisan gathering rehashing the campaign. He also told them that between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused him to lose the popular vote.... The claim is not supported by any verifiable facts, and analyses of the election found virtually no confirmed cases of voter fraud, let alone millions." ...
... CW: Straight out of the Dictators' Handbook: Lie to people who know you're lying. Lies are a means of asserting one's dominance over the hearers, and -- especially if the hearers don't contradict the liar -- he wins (or WINS!, as Trump would write). The dictator beats down both the listeners, & his "alternative facts" undermine the objective truth. Politicians & journalists think Trump is just deranged; no, he's beating them in a game they don't know how to play.
Men in Suits. Screenshot of an AP video which accompanies Peter Baker's story.... Peter Baker: "President Trump formally abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday, pulling away from Asia and scrapping his predecessor's most significant trade deal on his first full weekday in office, administration officials said." [CW: While men in dark suits stood by. During the Obama years, I forgot what the Oval Office White Men's Club looked like.] "In other action on a busy opening day, Mr. Trump ordered a hiring freeze in the federal work force, exempting the military. And he reinstituted limits on nongovernmental organizations that operate overseas and receive American taxpayer money from performing abortions. Republican presidents typically impose those restrictions soon after taking office, and Democratic presidents typically lift them when they take over." (Also linked yesterday afternoon. Updated to add "White"! Thanks to Akhilleus for the correction.) ...
... Steve Benen: "In his first full weekday as president, Donald Trump kept quite busy, moving forward on a series of executive orders and actions -- an approach to governing Republicans seemed to find offensive when there was a Democrat in the White House. But one of the many policies Trump acted on today stood out as especially important.... Trump ... barred recipients of U.S. foreign aid from promoting abortion as a method of family planning.... One of the striking aspects of today's directive was the story the visuals told: in a scene reminiscent of the House Republicans' all-male panel on birth control in early 2012, the Republican president re-imposed the global gag rule today in the Oval Office while surrounded by a group of men." ...
... CW: Since the funding is especially important in developing countries, this is another good place to make sure we have that "White" in the Oval Office White Men's Club.
... Paul Waldman re: the executive order re: limits on nongovernmental organizations overseas: "It should be noted that in his press briefing today, White House spokesperson Sean Spicer lied about this action in the same way Republicans often do, characterizing it as being necessary to stop 'taxpayer funds that are being spent overseas to perform an action that is contrary to the values of this President.' But taxpayer funding of abortions is already illegal. The global gag rule denies assistance to any organization that even talks about abortion, as in, for example, referring sex trafficking victims to somewhere they can get an abortion after being raped. But hey, they're just showing how much they care about 'life.'" -- CW ...
... Jasmine Lee of the New York Times: "President Trump's cabinet is shaping up to have a smaller percentage of women and nonwhites than the first cabinets of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush. If Mr. Trump's nominees are confirmed, women and nonwhites will hold five of 22 cabinet or cabinet-level positions. He has not yet named the nominee for one additional position. 'Donald Trump is rolling back the clock on diversity in the cabinet,' said Paul Light, a professor at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service." -- CW: To be fair, Trump couldn't find enough right-wing billionaires who were women & non-whites. ...
... Ylan Mui of the Washington Post: "President Trump's cancellation Monday of an agreement for a sweeping trade deal with Asia began recasting America's role in the global economy, leaving an opening for other countries to flex their muscles.... The action came as China and other emerging economies are seeking to increase their leverage in global affairs, seizing on America's turn inward. Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto [CW: or as Sean Spicer calls him, "Prime Minister Peña Nieto"] declared Monday that his country hopes to bolster trade with other nations and limit its reliance on the United States. Chinese state media derided Western democracy as having 'reached its limits'; President Xi Jinping had touted Beijing's commitment to globalization during his first appearance at the annual gathering of the world's economic elite last week in Davos, Switzerland.... Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, [said,] 'This could have an adverse long-run impact on the ability of the U.S. to maintain its influence and leadership in world economic and political affairs.'" -- CW ...
... Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "President Trump instituted an immediate hiring freeze Monday, signing a presidential memorandum that would affect a large swath of the executive branch but leave wide latitude for exemptions for those working in the military, national security and public safety. The move -- coming on the new president's first full working day in the White House -- represents the opening salvo in what could be the most concerted effort to overhaul the federal workforce in 35 years. Critiquing the Washington establishment was central to Trump's campaign, and he placed federal employees at the center of his effort to 'clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, D.C.'" ...
... Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "'President Trump's action will disrupt government programs and services that benefit everyone and actually increase taxpayer costs by forcing agencies to hire more expensive contractors to do work that civilian government employees are already doing for far less,' said American Federation of Government Employees President J. David Cox Sr. 'This hiring freeze will mean longer lines at Social Security offices, fewer workplace safety inspections, less oversight of environmental polluters, and greater risk to our nation's food supply and clean water systems.'... In 1982, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined hiring freezes imposed by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and determined that was not an effective strategy. Hiring freezes have 'little effect on Federal employment levels,' the GAO said. The report said the freezes 'disrupted agency operations, and in some cases, increased costs to the Government.'" ...
... CW: Trump is a bully & a showman. He's not at all interested in what works; he's interested in showing off all the power he has in his tiny little fingers.
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. -- George Orwell, 1984 ...
... Ashley Parker, et al., of the Washington Post: "Over the objections of his aides and advisers ... the new president issued a decree [on Saturday]: He wanted a fiery public response [to coverage of his inauguration & the Women's March], and he wanted it to come from his press secretary. Spicer's resulting statement -- delivered in an extended shout and brimming with falsehoods -- underscores the extent to which the turbulence and competing factions that were a hallmark of Trump's campaign have been transported to the White House.... Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media's failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public's perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment." -- CW ...
... Trump's Bullshit Secretary. Adam Raymond of New York: "White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer spent around 90 minutes Monday afternoon taking questions from reporters.... But it was the topic of crowd size at last Friday's inauguration that brought out the most animation in Spicer, who went on an extended and emotive explanation about how 'demoralizing' and 'frustrating' it is for Trump and his supporters to fend off constant criticism.... The discussion of inaugural crowds also involved Spicer reasserting his claims that Trump's was the most-watched inauguration of all time.... Asked if he always intends to tell the truth in the briefing room, Spicer said that he does.... But instead of walking ... back [Trump's claim the media's to blame for the rift with the intelligence community], Spicer deflected and began talking about agents 'hooting and hollering' during the president's visit to CIA headquarters to prove that he had support in the agency. Asked about a CBS report that said the cheering came from about 40 people who came with Trump and sat in the first three rows, Spicer said it wasn't true." --safari...
... Dana Milbank: "This is probably as close as we'll get to a mea culpa in Trump World. White House press secretary Sean Spicer came out for his first official briefing Monday afternoon resembling not at all the madman who unleashed his fury from the same podium Saturday evening. He smiled. He didn't shout. His suit fit. The lectern had been lowered so he could see over it. And he took questions -- not just from friendly outlets but from American Urban Radio (which has an African American audience) and Univision, the Hispanic network Donald Trump disparaged on the campaign.... A semi-contrite Spicer acknowledged Monday that, 'knowing what we know now,' he wouldn't have used bogus figures claiming Metro ridership in Washington was higher for Trump's inaugural than for Barack Obama's. He acknowledged that the crowd at Trump's inauguration was not a record.... The relatively sheepish and measured Spicer we saw Monday shows that, at least among some in the Trump White House, there is a latent capacity for shame." -- CW ...
... CW: Milbank writes that Spicer said the fake inauguration attendance he had touted last week "was referring to 'total audience,' including TV." Milbank doesn't call Spicer out on this, but Steve Gorman of Reuters reported yesterday that "Nearly 31 million viewers watched live U.S. television coverage of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, far fewer than tuned in to Barack Obama's first swearing-in, but otherwise the biggest such audience since Ronald Reagan entered office, ratings firm Nielsen reported on Saturday." Although the numbers aren't in yet, Trump's inauguration likely had more livestream viewers than other president's inaugurals because of technological improvements & more access sources. Still, Spicer can't claim viewership that hasn't been tallied. ...
... Tom Phillips of the Guardian: "The United States will take steps to foil Chinese efforts to 'take over' the South China Sea, the White House has indicated, amid growing hints that Donald Trump's administration intends to challenge Beijing over the strategic waterway. Speaking at a press briefing on Monday White House press secretary Sean Spicer vowed the US would 'make sure that we protect our interests' in the resource-rich trade route, through which some $4.5tn (£3.4tn) in trade passes each year. His comments come less than a fortnight after Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, set the stage for a potentially explosive clash with Beijing by likening its artificial island building campaign in the South China Sea to 'Russia's taking of Crimea'.... Chinese media responded by warning that any attempt to prevent China accessing its interests in the region risked sparking a 'large-scale war'." -- CW
Jeff Pegues of CBS News: "U.S. government sources tell CBS News that there is a sense of unease in the intelligence community after President Trump's visit to CIA headquarters on Saturday. An official said the visit 'made relations with the intelligence community worse' and described the visit as 'uncomfortable.' Authorities are also pushing back against the perception that the CIA workforce was cheering for the president. They say the first three rows in front of the president were largely made up of supporters of Mr. Trump's campaign. An official with knowledge of the make-up of the crowd says that there were about 40 people who'd been invited by the Trump, Mike Pence and Rep. Mike Pompeo teams.... White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday denied that there were 'Trump or White House folks' in the first rows.... A source who is familiar with the planning of the president's CIA visit saw Spicer's briefing, however, and firmly denied Spicer's response was accurate.... Officials dismiss White House claims that there were people waiting to get into the event." --safari ...
... Henry Farrell of the Washington Post: "This isn't the first time that Trump has engineered applause. When he first announced his candidacy, he got wild cheers -- from actors who had been paid to applaud him (Trump then stiffed the company that hired them for four months). When he gave his first news conference as president, he filled the back of the room with aides to cheer for him, and jeer at the journalists he was attacking.... There's a specialist term for rent-a-clappers. Trump is actually reviving a very old tradition -- the tradition of the claque. A claque is a group of people whose job is to generate applause.... Nearly all of us look to those around us before we decide to publicly express our feelings of approval or disapproval. This, in turn, means that applause, standing ovations and the like can be produced through clever social engineering." -- CW ...
... digby: "... Trump does this because he is phony and a con man and he seeks to give the impression that he's much more popular and successful than he is so he can gull his marks. That is what he cares about more than anything on earth." -- CW ...
... Steve M. "I also think Trump just wants to maintain a bubble in which the news is all good for him. Maybe the cheering section at CIA headquarters was meant to manufacture consent, but it also seems possible that it was meant to reassure Trump that, yes, he is loved. Maybe the lies about crowd size were directed less at us than at him.... At all times he apparently needs to be in a gated information enclave in which the political issue he cares most about -- the excellence of Donald Trump -- is discussed only in the most favorable terms." --safari
... Steve M. "During the last presidency, right-wingers became obsessed with how often Barack Obama used first-person pronouns in his speeches and remarks.... Well, no speechwriter seems to have worked on Trump's rambling remarks yesterday at CIA headquarters. He was winging it. And the numbers are in. Trump used the word 'I' 101 times. He used the word 'my' seven times and 'me' seven times. Trump didn't use the word 'America' even once." --safari ...
... ** Juan Cole: "[Donald Trump's] visit to the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters at Langley, Va., was probably intended by his handlers to begin the work of repairing that relationship. From all accounts it did not. The most alarming thing Trump said, however, regarded Iraq.... The United Nations Charter and other treaty instruments that are part of US law actually abolished the principle of 'to the victors go the spoils.'... Given that the US has 6000 troops in Iraq ... this kind of talk puts them in danger from Iraqi nationalists who may begin seeing them not as allies against ISIL but as stalking horses for a sinister imperialism. Trump just painted a big red target on the backs of our troops.... This isn't speculation: the great Borzou Daragahi reports that the Iraqis are indeed 'pissed' and ready to fight for their oil." --safari
We Can't Get Our Bullshit Straight.Politico: "President Donald Trump will release his tax returns after the IRS completes its audit of him, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway tweeted Monday in an apparent clarification from her earlier statement. 'On taxes, answers (& repeated questions) are same from campaign: POTUS is under audit and will not release until that is completed,' Conway tweeted. Her tweet stands in contrast to what she said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week,' when she said that Trump is 'not going to release his tax returns.'" --safari
... Kellyanne Kalories! Clint Rainey of New York: "... Villa Italian Kitchen, found mostly in food courts, has introduced #AlternativeFacts pizza. Sure, this new pie 'might sound too good to be true,' but the company insists it's zero calories despite being 'loaded' with bacon, pepperoni, ham, sausage, and mozzarella on very carb-heavy crust. Also, because size always matters in this universe, the servings are 'YUGE' -- six slices instead of the usual eight -- making for a 'positively presidential' pizza that Villa says is 'fit for even Kellyanne Conway!'" -- CW
Trump Dumps on TrumpTrolls -- and on All of Us. Tali Arbel of the AP: "... Donald Trump has picked a fierce critic of the Obama-era 'net neutrality' rules to be chief regulator of the nation's airwaves and internet connections. In a statement Monday, Ajit Pai said he was grateful to the president for choosing him as the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Several reports last week had said he was the pick. Pai had been one of the two Republican commissioners on a five-member panel that regulates the country's communications infrastructure, including TV, phone and internet service." ...
... CW: That's right. As you read this entry, and for the millions of Trump Dummkopfs, His Ignorance (I doubt he has any concept of net neutrality, and if he does, it's the wrong one -- he should ask his son, who he says is a computer genius) is about to slow down your Netflix & all the "slow-lane" sites you access. If you thought you might be personally immune from direct hits by incoming Trumpsterbombs, Trump just threw Pai in your face. ...
... AND the TrumpTrolls Will Still Believe. Alan Levinovitz in Slate: "Trump's rise to power has followed a similar trajectory to that of quacks who peddle panaceas to the desperate -- a bizarre and heartbreaking world I've long studied. Just like them, Trump will fail to deliver. But his supporters will find a way to exonerate him.... When people make big bets on miracle cures that fail to work, they rarely turn against the treatments or their merchants. Instead, they rationalize their misplaced faith, in order to save face, remain hopeful, and preserve an identity that's defined by their courageous ability to reject the status quo." -- CW
Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "President Trump's cabinet continued to take shape on Monday, as Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas earned approval to lead the Central Intelligence Agency and Rex W. Tillerson, the secretary of state nominee, cleared a key Senate hurdle to all but assure his own confirmation. Despite some shaky appearances from his nominees on Capitol Hill and often blistering Democratic opposition, Mr. Trump has thus far faced few meaningful obstacles in installing the team of his choice -- aided by Senate Republicans who are eager to expedite the confirmation process.... As [Sen. Marco] Rubio explained his vote [for Tillerson] to reporters after the hearing, a heckler sidled up beside him with a teasing prop: a model of a spine." -- CW ...
... Elana Schor of Politico: "Rex Tillerson took a key step closer to becoming ... Donald Trump's secretary of state late Monday as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination on a 11-10 party line vote. A vote on Tillerson by the full Senate may not come this week, given that both parties are set to depart the Hill for policy retreats on Wednesday. But the former ExxonMobil CEO's path to confirmation was cleared in the 48 hours before the committee's vote, as three Senate GOP Russia hawks announced they would support him despite earlier qualms." --safari ...
... CW: Tillerson cleared the committee on a party-line vote, 11-10, according to Matt Flegenheimer's account. Thanks, Marco! ...
... Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Sen. Marco Rubio will vote for President Trump's nominee for secretary of state, he announced Monday, resolving the final major question surrounding Rex Tillerson's bid to be confirmed as the nation's top diplomat. While Tillerson's confirmation was effectively sealed on Sunday, Rubio's decision provides a further boost to the former ExxonMobil chief executive. The Florida Republican had expressed serious doubts about Tillerson, particularly when it comes to Russia, and waited until the last possible day to announce his vote." CW: Rubio is no Hamlet of the Okeechobee. "To cave or not to cave" is never the question; rather, the question is "Is it nobler to capitulate today or on the morrow and thereby find myself regaled upon the front page of the Post? Be all my equivocations remembered." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ed Kilgore of New York: "In another straw-in-the-wind about the ideological and rhetoric leanings of the Trump White House, it appears chief strategist Stephen Bannon is hiring one of his more ferocious protégés at Breitbart News, the site's immigration reporter Julia Hahn. Hahn is an interesting example of the kind of people whose careers have prospered by association with the more radical strain of populist conservatism Trump represents.... Hahn [wrote] a piece ... [accusing Paul Ryan of concocting] ... a sinister plot to let in more Muslim refugees and expose an unsuspecting country to Sharia law and suggesting that Ryan was opening the floodgates to the wholesale conquest of America by Sharia law and female genital mutilation.... So you have to wonder what kind of message Hahn's hiring might send with respect to the rather delicate and extremely important relationship between the 45th president of the United States and the Speaker of the House." --safari
Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "With little warning or explanation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently canceled a major climate change conference that had been scheduled for next month in Atlanta.... American Public Health Association ... executive director, Georges Benjamin -- who was scheduled to be a keynote speaker at the CDC summit next month -- said agency officials decided to preemptively call off the event, rather than risk running afoul of an incoming president who has repeatedly called climate change a 'hoax' and has nominated climate change skeptics to his Cabinet.... Another scheduled speaker, Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, argued that the summit should have gone forward.... He said he fears the move will set a precedent of government officials self-silencing, in part over fears of reprisal or loss of funding, rather than standing behind the established science around climate change." ...
... CW: I'm with Maibach. This is a crucial time for people to stand up for what they believe in, just as millions of extraordinary people did this weekend. Going along to get along is the best way to abet a functional dictatorship.
Faux Populist. Mattahias Schwartz of The Intercept: "Donald Trump's team billed the Liberty and Freedom inaugural balls as populist celebrations, open to the general public for as little as $50 a ticket. The balls were supposed to be 'the most affordable in recent history, ensuring that they are accessible to the American people,' according to a January 17 release from the President's Inaugural Committee. But internal documents obtained by The Intercept show that the Liberty Ball was a more exclusive affair for high-dollar donors. Smaller donors were diverted to the much larger Freedom Ball.... In late December, following a 'behind the scenes tour' of the inaugural committee, the pro-Trump Breitbart website wrote that Trump's inauguration would be focused on 'regular working class people across the country.' The Washington Post also suggested that the balls would be low-cost populist events." --safari
Adios, Amigos. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Americans looking for information about the Trump administration or White House history in Spanish are coming up empty-handed. For now, at least, it no longer exists. Just after noon on Friday, WhiteHouse.gov/espanol went dark, with an error message explaining that 'the page you're looking for can't be found.'" -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Oh, and here is how some of the late-nite comics reviewed the inauguration. (Also linked yesterday.)
Ed O'Keefe & Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "A group of senior Senate Democrats on Tuesday plan to unveil their own $1 trillion plan to revamp the nation's airports, bridges, roads and seaports, urging President Trump to back their proposal, which they say would create 15 million jobs over 10 years. The Democrats said their infrastructure plan would rely on direct federal spending and would span a range of projects including not only roads and bridges, but also the nation's broadband network, hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and schools. Eager to drive a wedge between the new president and congressional Republicans, Democrats consider talk of infrastructure projects as a way to piggyback on Trump's frequent vows to repair the nation's crumbling roads and bridges and persuade him to adopt ideas that would put him at odds with GOP leaders, who have done little to embrace what would amount to a major new government spending program." CW: Really? Trump has a tax-credit scheme that looks nothing like the Democrats' proposals; it's a get-richer boondoggle for Trump's friends.
Spencer Woodman of The Intercept: "Over the weekend, millions of demonstrators took to streets across the country to mobilize against the new president and his agenda, assembling in a national turnout that organizers call the beginning of a reinvigorated protest movement. But in states home to dozens of Saturday's demonstrations, Republican lawmakers are moving to criminalize and increase penalties on peaceful protesting. Last week, I reported that such efforts were afoot in five states: In Minnesota, Washington state, Michigan [North Dakota, Indiana], and Iowa. Over the weekend, readers alerted me to two additional anti-protesting bills, both introduced by Republicans, that are pending in Virginia and Colorado. This brings the number of states that have in recent weeks floated such proposals to at least eight." --safari ...
The organizers of the Women's March have their act together as their website now has an emphasis of, 'Ten Actions, 100 Days' ~ check it out: https://www.womensmarch.com -- Mushiba, in today's Comments
... The Future of the Left is Female. Rebecca Traister of New York: "A lot of people predicted that women were going to change America's political history in January of 2017. But pretty much no one anticipated that they'd be doing it as leaders of the resistance. On Saturday, millions of women and men organized largely by young women of color -- staged the largest one-day demonstration in political history, a show of international solidarity that let the world know that women will be heading up the opposition to Donald Trump and the white patriarchal order he represents.... This mass turnout in support of liberty, sorority, and equality was conceived by women, led by women, and staged in the name of women. It also drew millions of men. It was a forceful pushback to the notion that because a woman just lost the American presidency, women should not be leading the politics of the left. Women, everyone saw on Saturday, are already leading the left, reframing what has historically been understood as the women's movement as the face and body and energy of what is now the Resistance." Read on. --safari...
... Gene Robinson: "The new president often boasts of having started a great movement. Let it be the one that was born with Saturday's massive protests. If size is important, and apparently to Trump it is, there was no contest. The Metro transit system recorded 1,001,613 trips on the day of the protest, the second-heaviest ridership in history -- surpassed only by ridership for President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009. By contrast, just 570,557 trips were taken Friday, when Trump took the oath of office.... A president obsessed with winning began his term by losing." -- CW ...
... Going Down in History. Lisa Ryan of New York: "The various Women's March events across the world produced some epic protest signs -- from witty quips about small hands to more serious placards about women's reproductive rights.... What will happen to these important works of protest art? Luckily, several museums across the world -- from Washington, D.C., to Canada -- as well as a number of libraries and digital publications have taken to Twitter to reveal that they have been collecting signs locally.... No word yet as to whether these signs will be used for future exhibits or merely for archive purposes, but at least they're being preserved." --safari
David Himmelstein & Steffie Woolhandler in the Washington Post: "Now that President Trump is in the Oval Office, thousands of American lives that were previously protected by provisions of the Affordable Care Act are in danger. For more than 30 years, we have studied how death rates are affected by changes in health-care coverage, and we're convinced that an ACA repeal could cause tens of thousands of deaths annually.... The biggest and most definitive study of what happens to death rates when Medicaid coverage is expanded, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that for every 455 people who gained coverage across several states, one life was saved per year. Applying that figure to even a conservative estimate of 20 million losing coverage in the event of an ACA repeal yields an estimate of 43,956 deaths annually.... The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler awarded Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) four Pinocchios for claiming that 36,000 people a year will die if the ACA is repealed...." -- CW ...
... CW: I wrote to Kessler & suggested he fix his Pinocchio machine. Let's see if he does. The only "falsehood" Bernie told was to possibly underestimate the "American carnage."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal from Texas officials seeking to restore the state's strict voter ID law. As is the court's custom, its brief order in the case, Abbott v. Veasey, No. 16-393, gave no reasons for turning down the appeal. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. issued an unusual statement explaining that the Supreme Court remains free to consider the case after further proceedings in the lower courts." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond the Beltway
Josephine Huetlin & Christopher Dickey of The Daily Beast: "Last year, they were still dining together in secret. But on Saturday, one day after the world watched Donald Trump getting sworn in as president of the United States..., Europe's emboldened far-right populists took to the stage together [in Koblenz, Germany,] for the first time in order to declare that they, too, will soon be elected the leaders of their countries. They spoke of the possibility, the likelihood, the inevitability of their elections as if it were, at this point, a mere matter fate." --safari
Share Article 
