- Donald Trump’s Dark Inauguration (NYT) "For the past eighteen months, Trump has attempted to plunge the country into a relentless present tense. In his imagination there has been no history of social subjugation, just the residue of tension; no memory of poverty, just the frustrations of unattained wealth; no reminders of the fear and loneliness of life in violent or repressive countries, just the press of migrants and refugees against our own borders. For most Americans, this has been the curse of the long campaign year, to have been forever stuck in the news cycle. The realization today, with an inaugural address that replicated the grinding partisanship of the campaign, was that this is exactly as the President wants it."
- Fact-checking President Trump’s inaugural address (WaPo) "'Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed.' There is no empirical evidence that the D.C. area got rich off the rest of the country, as Trump suggests. 'You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement, the likes of which the world has never seen before.' Trump is a minority president, in terms of the popular vote. He lost the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes to Hillary Clinton. Trump’s electoral college win, meanwhile, was a squeaker. Overall, according to a tally by John Pitney of Claremont McKenna College, Trump ranks 46th out of 58 electoral college results. 'Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities … and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.' Overall, the poverty rate has remained relatively flat under Obama. As we have repeatedly pointed out, violent and property crimes overall have been declining for about two decades, and are far below rates seen one or two decades ago. 'For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; subsidized the armies of other countries, while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.' Trump mixes up several things here. He seems to be referring to free-trade agreements in the first part of his sentence, though he ignores the fact that many U.S. industries also benefit and grow when they are able to sell products overseas. A 2013 Senate report found that the U.S. spent $10 billion a year on bases abroad. Given a defense budget of more than $500 billion, the cost of maintaining these bases is a mere pittance. The U.S. doles out about $6 billion a year in foreign military financing, with most of it going to just two countries: Israel and Egypt. But this money comes with a catch — most of it must be spent on U.S. hardware, creating jobs for Americans. One can argue about whether the military budget should be boosted, but there is no question that U.S. military is stronger and more capable than any other nation’s. '[We’ve] spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich, while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon.' Foreign aid amounts to less than 1 percent of the U.S. budget, with about $18 billion going to economic and development aid and $8 billion for security assistance. 'One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.' The number of U.S. workers engaged in manufacturing is now about 12.3 million, up from 11.5 million in 2010. But economists believe the biggest factor in the decline in manufacturing is automation, not jobs going overseas. 'We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.' But Trump has had a long history of outsourcing a variety of his products as a businessman, and has acknowledged doing so. 'We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.' Meanwhile, Trump is apparently unaware that participation has declined in means-tested programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps)."
- A Most Dreadful Inaugural Address (National Review) "'A dependence on the people,' James Madison wrote, 'is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.' He meant the checks and balances of our constitutional architecture. They are necessary because, as Madison anticipated and as the nation was reminded on Friday, 'Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.'"
BUSINESS:
- Why the auto industry’s big investments may have everything and nothing to do with Trump (WaPo) "'As with Ford, Fiat Chrysler, Hyundai and Toyota before, what General Motors announcement today is mostly theater to play in the news cycle created by President[-elect] Trump’s tweets,' said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst at Autotrader. 'These investments and hiring plans have long been in the works and are a continuation of what the company has been doing in recent years — trying to run a successful, profitable business.' What Trump’s election may have influenced is the timing of the announcement. But the bulk of GM’s hiring will not be traditional auto manufacturing. The company plans to add another 5,000 jobs in the next two to three years — all of them salaried positions in finance or engineering." and GM to invest $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing (WaPo) "Officials at GM and other companies have said their recent investment announcements were years in the making and not the result of Trump’s criticism, but their timing gives the incoming administration the opportunity to take credit."
- Netflix Is Killing It—Big Time—After Pouring Cash Into Original Shows (Wired) "The company just recorded the biggest quarter in its 19-year history, handily beating Wall Street’s expectations while adding a record 7.05 million subscribers. That’s almost two million more new viewers than even Netflix expected, with a fair number of them overseas. All of which is to say, Netflix is killing it—thanks to its enormous investments in original content."
- Apple Adds to Qualcomm’s Troubles, Filing Lawsuit Over Rebates (NYT) "The commission and Apple complaints follow several other problems, including a $975 million fine by Chinese regulators in 2015 and activist shareholder complaints later that year that forced layoffs at Qualcomm. Last month, Qualcomm was fined $850 million in South Korea for unfair patent licensing."
- 5 best industries for starting a business in 2017 (USAToday) "1. Health care. 2. Marijuana. 3. E-commerce. 4. Tech. 5. Home and building maintenance.
HEALTH:
- Trump’s Vow to Repeal Health Law Revives Talk of High-Risk Pools (NYT) "About 27 percent of people under 65 are thought to have some sort of pre-existing condition that will most likely leave them without individual insurance if the law is repealed, according to a recent study. The guarantee of coverage has already become a rallying cry for people who want to keep the law. The challenge for lawmakers is this: How do you get insurers to cover people who will definitely need costly medical care — and do so without making insurance too expensive for everyone? The Affordable Care Act addresses that question by requiring everyone to get coverage or face a tax penalty."
NEWS:
- Apple Adds to Qualcomm’s Troubles, Filing Lawsuit Over Rebates (NYT) "The commission and Apple complaints follow several other problems, including a $975 million fine by Chinese regulators in 2015 and activist shareholder complaints later that year that forced layoffs at Qualcomm. Last month, Qualcomm was fined $850 million in South Korea for unfair patent licensing."
- 5 best industries for starting a business in 2017 (USAToday) "1. Health care. 2. Marijuana. 3. E-commerce. 4. Tech. 5. Home and building maintenance.
HEALTH:
- Trump’s Vow to Repeal Health Law Revives Talk of High-Risk Pools (NYT) "About 27 percent of people under 65 are thought to have some sort of pre-existing condition that will most likely leave them without individual insurance if the law is repealed, according to a recent study. The guarantee of coverage has already become a rallying cry for people who want to keep the law. The challenge for lawmakers is this: How do you get insurers to cover people who will definitely need costly medical care — and do so without making insurance too expensive for everyone? The Affordable Care Act addresses that question by requiring everyone to get coverage or face a tax penalty."
NEWS:
- ‘Fake news’ didn’t swing the election because people barely remembered it, study says (The Verge) "As this suggests, the authors did encounter far more pro-Trump fake news shares — 30.3 million shares for false stories that favored Trump, versus 7.6 million that favored Clinton. But by extending an existing formula for calculating political persuasion, they concluded that all the fake stories were seen and believed far less than traditional media like television."
- Donald Trump, the Impulsive Demagogue in the White House (New Yorker) "Around the world, there is still astonishment that such an inexperienced, volatile, and disruptive figure could become America’s President. It’s hard to recall a President who had such little interest, or expertise, in the details of governing. Impulsive behavior is one thing. The worrying thing about Trump is that his impulsiveness is combined with authoritarian instincts and, according to some accounts, an unhealthy interest in populist dictators."
- How Trump Could Rearrange the National Security Matrix (Ozy) "But let’s think about which issues should belong, initially, in each of four buckets: Urgent, Important, Emerging and Deserving of Maintenance. In-Your-Face Urgent. In other words: terrorism, nuclear weapons and cyber threats. Long-Simmering Importance. The Middle East’s many disputes. Then there is Europe. Also perched here are large, important countries with uncertain futures — China and Russia. Emerging — and Edging onto the Stage. The administration will want to keep an eye on the controversial Iran nuclear agreement. The North American Free Trade Agreement. The Paris climate agreement is in the same bin. Then there are a host of building problems that could burst at any moment, starting with Venezuela. Maintaining Global Expertise and Insight. It’s usually something that no one has planned for."
- Obama’s self-revealing final act (WaPo) "Barack Obama did not go out quietly. Two of them [final hour decisions] were simply shocking. Commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, one of the great traitors of our time, is finger-in-the-eye willfulness. The other last-minute Obama bombshell occurred four weeks earlier when, for the first time in nearly a half-century, the United States abandoned Israel on a crucial Security Council resolution, allowing the passage of a condemnation that will plague both Israel and its citizens for years to come."
- Jared Kushner, Trump’s Son-in-Law, Is Cleared to Serve as Adviser (NYT)
- Trump, Russia, and the News Story That Wasn’t (NYT)
READ THIS:
- THE LAST LION: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm 1940-1965
TECHNOLOGY:
- The Darknet Is Evolving To Offer More Secrecy Than Ever (Wired) "The next generation of hidden services will use a clever method to protect the secrecy of those addresses. Instead of declaring their .onion address to hidden service directories, they’ll instead derive a unique cryptographic key from that address, and give that key to Tor’s hidden service directories."
- Tesla's Autopilot has slashed crash rates for its cars by 40%, according to a government report (Business Insider) "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released the report after closing its six-month investigation into Tesla's first known Autopilot fatality. NHTSA did not find a safety defect in Tesla's Autopilot and is not issuing a recall."
- 5 ways to upgrade your old car with new-car tech (USAToday)
- Donald Trump made it to the White House. His treasured phone may not. (WaPo)
WATCH THIS:
- Command and Control (American Experience Films / PBS)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Trump, Russia, and the News Story That Wasn’t (NYT)
READ THIS:
- THE LAST LION: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm 1940-1965
TECHNOLOGY:
- The Darknet Is Evolving To Offer More Secrecy Than Ever (Wired) "The next generation of hidden services will use a clever method to protect the secrecy of those addresses. Instead of declaring their .onion address to hidden service directories, they’ll instead derive a unique cryptographic key from that address, and give that key to Tor’s hidden service directories."
- Tesla's Autopilot has slashed crash rates for its cars by 40%, according to a government report (Business Insider) "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released the report after closing its six-month investigation into Tesla's first known Autopilot fatality. NHTSA did not find a safety defect in Tesla's Autopilot and is not issuing a recall."
- 5 ways to upgrade your old car with new-car tech (USAToday)
- Donald Trump made it to the White House. His treasured phone may not. (WaPo)
WATCH THIS:
- Command and Control (American Experience Films / PBS)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Here’s How the Presidential Motorcade Works to Keep Trump Safe (Wired) "A glance at your playbill will reveal the dancers: the Secret Service, police escorts, White House staffers, the principal (in this case, POTUS). And, of course, the bad guys. It’s their threat, specific or not-so-specific, real or imagined, that motivates this whole enterprise. The ballet starts with some serious training. Once the motorcade’s moving, the first rule is do not stop."
- Here's George W. Bush trying his best to figure out how ponchos work at the inauguration (Mashable)
- Here's George W. Bush trying his best to figure out how ponchos work at the inauguration (Mashable)
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