1.31 Last night, within hours of refusing to defend Trump’s executive order on immigration, Sally Yates was fired from her post as acting attorney general.
1.30 Senators McCain and Graham object to the travel ban. Powerful GOP Senators John McCain, of Arizona, and Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, issued a joint statement blasting Trump’s move as so hasty that it may “become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.” “This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country,” they said.
1.30 In Albany, Governor Cuomo addresses Planned Parenthoo. “We will never go back!”
1.29 Dinner with Paul and Ann at Xavier’s XO
1.28 Steve Bannon in the Times: “I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president. The media should . . . keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.”
1.28 Administration issues so-called Muslim Ban. Chaos ensues. Public erupts in spontaneous demonstrations, clogging airports. Before dawn, the ill-considered, clumsily-drawn, unnecessisarily punitive, and possibly unconstitutional order is stayed.
1.26 Charles Blow in the Times: “We all have to adjust to this unprecedented assault on the truth and stand ready to vigilantly defend against it, because without truth, what’s left? Our president is a pathological liar. Say it. Write it. Never become inured to it. And dispense with the terms of art to describe it. A lie by any other name portends the same.
1.25 Mary Tyler Moore dies at 80.”
1.25 Mike Allen on Axios: “There is a dominant faction inside the White House that believes fervently this is shrewd, long-term, disruptive politics that will forever change the country.”
1.25 James Kwak in The Chronicle of Higher Education: “The rhetoric of economism was taken up first by think tanks such as the Foundation for Economic Education and the American Enterprise Institute, then by the National Review of William F. Buckley, who helped make free-market economics part of the conservative synthesis. From Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan, the conviction that all economic problems could be boiled down to first principles and solved by the magic of competitive markets became a central tenet of conservative ideology. In the memorable words of Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, “The market is rational and the government is dumb.” . . .Economism presents itself as an abstract, value-neutral representation of the world — one that invokes the prestige of economics, a discipline that many people find intimidating. “It’s just Economics 101,” one often hears. The role that it plays in contemporary society, however, is deeply ideological. Economism naturalizes one possible state of affairs — in which individuals and companies are left to compete in unregulated markets — and, like Doctor Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide, celebrates the outcomes that result as the best of all possible worlds.”
1.24 Jim VandeHei on MSNBC: “This is not about crowd sizes — crowd size has no bearing whatsoever on how someone is going to govern. … [Y]ou’re talking about an allegation that goes to the heart of our democracy, … [E]veryone keeps thinking, ‘Ah, he’s gonna change — he’s in office.’ … It’s Donald Trump. He’s not going to change. … [P]eople have to take a deep breath and understand that sometimes facts are facts.”
1.24 Variety: While no actors of color were nominated the last two years, this year saw every acting category recognizing a person of color. A record-tying (with 2007) seven minority actors were recognized, including a record six black actors.
1.24 Garrison Keillor in the Post: ““American carnage,” my Aunt Sally: The correct term is “American capitalism.” Jobs are lost to automation, innovation, obsolescence, the moving finger of fate. The carriage industry was devastated by the automobile, and the men who made surreys and broughams and hansoms had to learn something new; the Pullman porter union was hit hard by the advent of air travel, and the porters sent their sons to college; the newspaper business was hit hard by Craigslist. Too bad for us. I know gifted men who were successful graphic designers until computers came along and younger people with computer skills took their place and those gifted men had to do something else. T-shirts are made in Asian countries because Americans don’t want to pay $20 for one. Coal yields to natural gas as renewable energy marches forward. Who doesn’t get this? The idea that the government is obligated to create a good living for you is one the Republican Party has fought since Adam was in the third grade. It’s the party of personal responsibility. But there he is, promising to make the bluebirds sing. As if.”
1.24 Jennifer Rubin in the Post: The Post reports that as events unfolded on Friday and Saturday “Trump grew increasingly and visibly enraged.” We know two things from this: 1.) He’s an emotional train wreck before much of anything has happened and 2.) Those close to him already started spilling the beans, perhaps to exonerate themselves and perhaps to communicate to their boss through the media. Trump’s ire simply confirms what we already knew, namely that his insatiable need for approval and his rage when he does not receive it make for an alarmingly unpresidential demeanor.
1.23 Greg Sargent in the Washington Post: “This is not a conventional dispute over the facts. It is not about “relations” between the press and the White House. It is about truth and power. The message this is designed to send is that Trump has the power to declare what the truth is, and the news media does not. The Trump White House is maintaining this posture while telling enormous, demonstrable lies, but no matter — according to the new White House Ministry of Disinformation, the truth is what Donald Trump says it is. Bank on it: This will hold true even when Donald Trump contradicts Donald Trump.”
1.23 Emily Ratajkowski walks her dog for Sports Illustrated
1.23 Jenna Johnson in the Washington Post: “In the opening hours of his first formal day in the White House on Monday, President Trump welcomed leaders from several of the country’s largest corporations and promised to wipe out at least 75 percent of government regulations that hinder their businesses, fast-track their plans to open factories and cut taxes “massively.” And he again threatened to impose a “substantial border tax” on companies that move production out of the country. “We’re going to be cutting regulation massively,” Trump told a large group of business chief executives over breakfast, which was briefly open to the news media. “Now, we’re going to have regulation, and it’ll be just as strong and just as good and just as protective of the people as the regulation we have right now. The problem with the regulation that we have right now is that you can’t do anything. … I have people that tell me that they have more people working on regulations than they have doing product.” Those who do not heed this advice, Trump said, could face new tariffs that he described as “substantial” and “major.” This threat is one that many Republicans disagree with, worried that it could increase prices for consumers and unfairly punish some companies. International trade experts said Trump may not have the authority to punish individual companies, while broad-based tariffs would violate existing treaties. Trump defended this proposed tax on Monday as “fair.”
“Somebody would said: ‘Oh, Trump is going to tax.’ I’m not going to tax. There is no tax, none whatsoever,” Trump said. “And I just want to tell you: All you have to do is stay. Don’t leave. Don’t fire your people in the United States. We have the greatest people.”
1.21 Aziz Ansari on Saturday Night Live: “I think Trump should make a speech. A real speech denouncing the lower-case K.K.K. Don’t tweet about me being lame or the show. Write a speech. A real speech. Because these people are out there, and it’s pissing a lot of people off. And I think it could make a difference. Because other presidents have done things like this, and it has helped. Hate crimes and stuff that went down.Now George Bush, George W. Bush made a speech after 9/11, and it really helped. Things changed. This what he said in his speech, and I’m paraphrasing slightly. He said, “Islam is peace. The perpetrators of these attacks, they don’t represent Islam. They represent war and violence. Our enemies are not our Muslim brothers and sisters. Our enemies are a network of radical terrorists.” And everyone applauded. Democrats, Republicans, it didn’t matter. Because it’s not about politics. It’s about basic human decency and remembering why the country was founded in the first place. And I was sitting there and I’m watching this speech and I’m like, “What the hell has happened? I’m sitting here wistfully watching old George W. Bush speeches?” Just sitting there like, “What a leader he was!” Sixteen years ago, I was certain this dude was a dildo. Now, I’m sitting there like, “He guided us with his eloquence!”
