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
A Demagogue Crowned
The inauguration — it’s hard to ignore.
There’s pomp, there’s circumstance galore!
In the drizzly gloom,
Some read portents of doom,
But really, we can’t imagine what Trump has in store.
Russian Nationalists Celebrate Trump Inauguration
Washington will be ours.
— Konstantin Rykov, a former pro-Putin lawmaker and one of the promoters of an all-night party for Russian nationalists at what used to be the main Soviet-era post office in Moscow to celebrate Donald Trump’s inauguration, Reuters reports. Rykov said on social media it was right to celebrate the first phase of the “New World Order.”
It’s Donald’s Inauguration Day …
Donald Trump’s inauguration by the numbers, according to Reuters
- 900,000: The number of people expected to attend, including protesters; about half the amount of President Obama’s inauguration.
- 20: The expected duration, in minutes, of Trump’s inauguration speech.
- 105: The longest inaugural speech, in minutes. It was delivered by William Henry Harrison in 1841 in a snowstorm. He wasn’t wearing a hat or coat. He died of pneumonia a month later.
- 270,000: The number of protesters expected to converge on Washington.
D.C. Weed Group Has Rolled 5,500 Free Joints for Inauguration
5,500
Number of free joints rolled and handed out by DCMJ, a Washington, D.C.–based marijuana advocacy group that successfully lobbied for weed legalization in the district, reports Time. “DCMJ says the marijuana hand-out is not necessarily an anti-Trump protest, since both revelers and protesters are invited to partake. Instead, says DCMJ co-founder Nikolas Schiller, the event is supposed to be for anybody who supports cannabis reform.”
Poetic Justice
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
