Close reading
Greg Sargent offers a close reading of Jared Kushner’s statement to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.
“It’s getting kind of crowded in here”
As the head count at Trump Tower rises, I am reminded of a great moment in film.
Crusty diction
Donald Trump today described John McCain as “a crusty voice in Washington.”
Thank you, Judge Watson
Judge Derrick K. Watson of Federal District Court in Honolulu ruled that the Trump administration’s temporary travel ban ought not to bar grandparents and other close relatives of persons in the United States from entering the country.
Another shoe
“Part of a Russian government effort.”
“A Billionaire for the Rest of Us”
I offer this parodic campaign slogan to any billionaire who’d like to use it.
Budget!
For the first time in more than two years, Illinois has a budget.
A voter-suppression effort, rerouted
Here is yet another example of the new administration’s failure to employ people who understand the workings of the institutions that the administration seeks to undermine.
A thought for these days
From Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
A Chris Christie “Footprints”
Our daughter Rachel’s husband Seth Raab is a very funny guy. This tweet is his.
Illinois, Illinois, Illinois
“This impasse has been very cleverly designed to minimize the immediate obvious impact on middle-class families that don’t have a need for state-funded social services.”
In search of fake Time
The Washington Post reports that at least four of Donald Trump’s golf courses have displayed a fake Time magazine cover featuring Donald Trump.
Republicans present and past
Astonishing, in light of current events, to realize that it was a Republican president who proposed a national health-care plan “that would have required employers to offer insurance with standard benefits — including dental care, mental health care and a free choice of hospitals and doctors.”
White House misspellings and typos
Seth Masket, a former writer for the White House Office of Correspondence, considers the abundance of misspellings and typos in official Whi...
On hope
Imagine a chair or dean, after a meeting has ended, asking for a private word with a faculty member who suspects plagiarism in the work of some favored student: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Biff go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
Peanuts Donald
His name is Thibault, but his hair and manner say “Donald.”
“Salacious material”
Strange: Trump circles back — twice — to the “salacious material” and denies wrongdoing. Was anyone besides Trump still thinking about that stuff in March? He doth protest too much, methinks.
Goodbye to Paris
Bill McKibben, writing in The New York Times.
Bach, revised
Elaine Fine reimagines The Coffee Cantata.
Trump trumps Integritas
The New York Times reports on the Trump Organization’s “coat of arms.”
Representative Adrian Smith on “the necessity of nutrition”
Refusing to say whether every American is entitled to eat.
Trump, child?
Alison Gopnik, who studies learning and development in children, explains why Donald Trump is “utterly unlike a four-year-old.”
A real nut job
I found this defenseless creature online and combed its tail forward.
Word of the day: nut job
Perhaps nut job will be the 2017 word of the year.
What didn’t the president know and when didn’t he know it
“The president wasn’t even aware of where this information came from. He wasn’t briefed on the source or method of the information either.”
Baby’s First Resist-Story
Fresca and bink have created an alphabet book with wash-away illustrations: Baby’s First Resist-Story. A is for alternative facts.
Telling
Mark Shields: “President George Washington could never tell a lie. President Richard Nixon could never tell the truth. And President Donald Trump cannot tell the difference.”
Trump fires Comey
An extraordinary bit of reasoning.
John Shimkus at work and play
Did John Shimkus read the bill to repeal the ACA? “Uh, I just got back from baseball practice.”
The real reason for “no town halls”
Talking to constituents in ones and two means that there are, in effect, no witnesses, no one else listening and thinking and making up or changing her or his mind. No reporters either.