TOP OF THE NEWS:
- How Steve Bannon Set the Stage for Donald Trump (The Ringer) "Trump is not a character in any of Bannon’s docs, but the films embody the messaging hammered again and again by the Trump campaign: an embrace of nationalism, disdain for progressive causes, and confidence that it takes only one straight-talking populist to bring back a better, more 'traditional' America. Bannon’s documentaries aren’t against any particular thing so much as they’re against everything except the Judeo-Christian, 1950s-fetishizing nationalistic fever dream. Bannon’s films long for a white-picket-fence past that never existed. He sells the philosophy of Donald Trump’s America by pining for June Cleaver’s suburbia. 'Make America Great Again' could be the tagline to any one of Bannon’s films. It’s an imperative and a plea to return to an idealized version of the past. As a command, it tells people they are capable of this reversal, if only they follow the leader. As a plea from a crowd, it’s an affirmation that Trump must rule. But what is unusual about Bannon, as an American politician, is how gleeful he has been about the prospect of literal revolution. 'I’m a Leninist,' he reportedly told a Daily Beast writer in 2013. 'Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.' (After joining Team Trump, Bannon later said he had no recollection of the conversation.) Becoming the most notorious propagandist for what he calls the 'center-right revolt' may have been personally meaningful to Bannon, or maybe he’s a complete cynic. I cannot pretend to know his innermost motivations, but looking at his history, his on-the-record interviews, and his filmography, it is apparent he has been tinkering diligently with this ideology and casting about for the person to lead this movement for over a decade."
- The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence (Rolling Stone) "Trump choosing Pence was an explicit move to protect his flank with the Christian right. It seems likely that Pence will have immense influence over social issues, like repealing Obamacare, gutting abortion rights and keeping the LGBTQ community in its place. So what do we know about Pence? He became president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, a conservative think tank, and began publishing his thoughts online. He wrote some real doozies, like coming out as a climate-change denialist ('Global warming is a myth. ... There, I said it') and a cigarette denialist ('Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill'). He became a board member of the Indiana Family Institute, an anti-abortion, anti-gay organization that pronounced the protest movement that formed after the brutal 1998 murder of gay teen Matthew Shepard to be homosexual-activist 'propaganda.' [He] benefited greatly from the wall-to-wall 'Trump is a crazy monkey throwing feces' media coverage during the fall campaign, in that his record was undercovered, but it's out there and suggests that his impact as vice president will screw African-Americans, women, the poor and any other square peg in round America. Pence is the nation's 48th vice president. Nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency as a result of death or resignation. That's a 19 percent ascendancy rate. Between Trump's trigger-happy Twitter persona, the ethical nightmare of his business empire, his KFC addiction and possible entanglements with Vladimir Putin, I'd say the chances for Mike Pence are more than 50-50."
BUSINESS:
- Doubts Arise as Investors Flock to Crowdfunded Start-Ups (NYT) "Yet advocates of crowdfunding, like Mr. Feit, have been expressing concern about the low levels of compliance among many of the early companies that have raised money and the bad terms the companies have offered investors."
NEWS:
- Donald Trump Signs Executive Actions: ‘Today the USA Gets Back Control of its Borders’ (Breitbart) "Trump said that pundits and the media have ignored victims of open borders. 'To all of those hurting out there, I repeat to you these words. We hear you, we see you and you will never, ever be ignored again,' he said." and Trump to sign executive orders enabling construction of proposed border wall and targeting sanctuary cities (WaPo)
- Trump seeks ‘major investigation’ into unsupported claims of voter fraud (WaPo) "The White House has yet to provide details, but Trump said in back-to-back tweets that the investigation into 'VOTER FRAUD' — Trump used all capitals for emphasis — would cover 'those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal' and 'those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time).' and Steve Bannon registered to vote in two states despite Trump's cries of 'voter fraud' (The Guardian) and Trump cabinet nominee Steven Mnuchin is also registered to vote in two states (CNN)
- What Do You Mean by 'The Media'? (Atlantic) "The sentiment capitalizes and expands upon an unprecedented divide: As of September of 2016, according to a Gallup poll, more Americans distrust 'the media' than ever before. Especially among Republicans: Only 14 percent have even a 'fair amount of trust in the media.'"
SCIENCE:
- The Atomic Origins of Climate Science (New Yorker) "The nuclear-winter debate has long since been forgotten, but you can still spy it behind every cloud and confusion. It holds a lesson or two. A public understanding of science is not well served by shackling science to a national-security state. The public may not naturally have much tolerance for uncertainty, but uncertainty is the best that many scientific arguments can produce. Critics of climate-change science who ground their argument on uncertainty have either got to apply that same standard of evidence to nuclear-weapons strategy or else find a better argument. Because, as Sagan once put it, theories that involve the end of the world are not amenable to experimental verification—at least, not more than once."
- They Walked on the Moon (NYT) "Here is a look at the 12 astronauts who walked on the lunar surface."
WATCH THIS:
- Robert Gates - Charlie Rose (PBS)
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- How bad is email for the environment? (WaPo) "A normal email has a footprint of 4 g of CO2e. An email with a 'long and tiresome attachment' can have a carbon footprint of 50g CO2e."
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