Day: January 23, 2017
‘Rollover’ Rubio Will Vote for Tillerson
1
Number of votes Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) will cast for Rex Tillerson. Rubio announced that he would support President Trump’s pick to lead the State Department, removing the last significant stumbling block to his nomination, The Hill reports. “Rubio, who aggressively questioned Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson during his hearing earlier this month, had been the lone Republican holdout on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
It’s Not About Crowd Size, It’s About Delegitimizing the Media
The Trump administration is creating a baseline expectation among its loyalists that they can’t trust anything said by the media. The spat over crowd size is a low-stakes, semi-comic dispute, but the groundwork is being laid for much more consequential debates over what is, and isn’t, true. Delegitimizing the institutions that might report inconvenient or damaging facts about the president is strategic for an administration that has made a slew of impossible promises and takes office amid a cloud of ethics concerns and potential scandals.
— Ezra Klein
Lawmakers in Five States Introduced Legislation to Criminalize Peaceful Protests
5
Number of states where Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation to criminalize peaceful protests. The Intercept: “On Saturday, the Women’s March on Washington will kick off what opponents of the incoming administration hope will be a new era of demonstrations against the Republican agenda. But in some states, nonviolent demonstrating may soon carry increased legal risks — including punishing fines and significant prison terms — for people who participate in protests involving civil disobedience. Over the past few weeks, Republican legislators across the country have quietly introduced a number of proposals to criminalize and discourage peaceful protest.”
The Con Man Has Reached the ‘Maximal Limits of His Strategy’
The methods of a skilled con artist have worked just barely well enough to deliver the presidency to Trump. But what happens when his grandiose promises fail to materialize? And when the aspects of his program that he never mentioned in his speech — tax cuts for the rich, stripping away health insurance from millions, massive graft — do take place? A con artist who always escaped his old victims and found new ones has reached the maximal limits of his strategy. What happens when the marks are demanding that the promises he made be redeemed, and there is nowhere for him to go, and he commands the powers of the state?
— Jonathan Chait
Trump Lives ‘Down to Expectations’
Twenty minutes into his presidency, Donald Trump, who is always claiming to have made, or to be about to make, astonishing history, had done so. Living down to expectations, he had delivered the most dreadful inaugural address in history.
— George Will
There’s No ‘Alternative’
Our new prez is notorious for his Twitter attacks,
And his disdain for the press as libelous hacks.
But veracity’s the victim
When he pulls statistics from his rectum,
But wait — they’re not lies — they’re “alternative facts.”
