ALLIES? WHO NEEDS ALLIES?

TOP OF THE NEWS:

- No ‘G’day, mate’: On call with Australian prime minister, Trump badgers and brags (WaPo) "Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. At one point Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — and that, 'This was the worst call by far.' 'This is the worst deal ever,' Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. U.S. officials said that Trump has behaved similarly in conversations with leaders of other countries, including Mexico. But his treatment of Turnbull was particularly striking because of the tight bond between the United States and Australia — countries that share intelligence, support one another diplomatically and have fought together in wars including in Iraq and Afghanistan." and McCain Steps In to Ease Tension With Australia Over Trump Insult (NYT) "'I (McCain) asked Ambassador Hockey to convey to the people of Australia that their American brothers and sisters value our historic alliance, honor the sacrifice of the Australians who have served and are serving by our side, and remain committed to the safer, freer and better world that Australia does far more than its fair share to protect and promote.'" and Here’s what the ‘dumb deal’ on refugees with Australia actually says (WaPo) "According to the agreement, which took months of negotiation, America would accept about 1,200 refugees (not, as Trump called them, 'illegal immigrants') from Australia. The U.S. would prioritize families and children, and all candidates would be subjected to a thorough vetting process. America's Department of Homeland Security would conduct two rounds of interviews with each candidate. In November, officials estimated that it would take six months to a year to complete the transfer of refugees." and Trump’s Harsh Talk With Malcolm Turnbull of Australia Strains Another Alliance (NYT)

- An explosive new story about Trump’s talks with Peña Nieto shows how fraught US-Mexico relations are now (Quartz)

NEWS:

- New Tensions With Iran (NYT) "Iran was dangerously provocative in conducting a ballistic missile test this week, especially given the confusion and incompetence that has characterized Mr. Trump’s first days in office. Officials in Tehran must have known that the launch of the medium-range Shahab missile would alarm America and other countries in the unstable region and would be red meat for the impulsive new president. However, the Iranians seemed determined to test not just the missile, but also whether Mr. Trump would seize any excuse to blow up the 2015 nuclear deal. Given these tensions, Iran needs to refrain from testing missiles, even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said they are not capable of carrying nuclear warheads. For now, the administration says it intends to impose new missile-related sanctions in a way that does not affect the nuclear deal." and Iran Is Threatened With U.S. Reprisals Over Missile Test (NYT) and With Flynn putting Iran ‘on notice,’ the first days of President Trump’s foreign policy set a combative tone (WaPo)

- The leaks coming out of the Trump White House right now are totally bananas (WaPo) "I wrote recently that not only was this the leakiest White House I'd ever seen but also that the leaks -- whether purposely or not -- seemed to cast the president as a child who badly needs to be managed. What's truly remarkable is that the leaking appears to be growing even more frequent and even more deleterious to President Trump's image within just the last few days."

- Questions mount over botched Yemen raid approved by Trump (Guardian) "The mission was approved over dinner five days after the presidential inauguration by Trump and his closest advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special adviser and former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon, as well as defence secretary General Jim Mattis."

- Steve Bannon’s first major play is shaping up as a full-blown fiasco (WaPo) "In the face of widespread chaos created by the executive order’s lack of procedural clarity and confused implementation, Bannon has sought to convert the resulting outrage into proof that he is doing something right, reducing it to nothing more than frantic whining by media elites terrified of the rise of Bannon’s 'new political order.'"

- Donald Trump Through a Loudspeaker, Darkly (New Yorker) "The muddling of fact and fiction is a tried-and-true tactic of totalitarian regimes. What’s more, when the two are confused for long enough, or when an indefatigable war on truth has been waged for a year, or two years, or perhaps eight, it will likely be harder and more tiresome to untangle them and remember a time when a firm line was drawn between the true and the false as a matter of course. If amnesia breeds normalization, fatigue has always served as the authoritarian’s great accomplice. In the next four to eight years, American children will be born in a country led by a vainglorious man who wishes to fit facts—and their future—into the convenient shape of his ego. But democracy, freedom of expression, and, above all, the right to truth are not antiquated pieties. They belong to citizens who can still make their voices heard, before resignation metastasizes into complacency, exhaustion into self-doubt. The struggle will be to maintain openness and tolerance as the norm, the values that our children absorb into their identities naturally—to be defended rather than be defensive about."

- Donald Trump Just Struck a Blow against Authoritarianism (National Review) "But if Trump is an authoritarian, he just dealt a huge blow to his own agenda: As a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch will almost certainly be a firewall against federal overreach and a consistent defender not just of the Bill of Rights but of the republican, federalist structure of government the founders established."

- White House Inc. (NYT) "Last week, an executive of the Trump Organization, Eric Danziger, said it would open Trump-branded hotels in the 26 largest metropolitan areas in the country, up from five. The business, he said, would focus its expansion domestically for 'the next four or eight years.' The fee to join the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., which Mr. Trump calls the 'Winter White House,' just doubled to $200,000. Mr. Trump has argued that the law permits the president to keep his business — even though no modern president has done so, and far poorer ones than he have sold off business interests to serve."

- Can Jared and Ivanka Outrun Donald Trump’s Scandals? (Vanity Fair) "But after a week, it appears that the de facto First Couple may have underestimated the potential pitfalls. Less than a fortnight into his new post, Kushner appears unable to control both his father-in-law and those around him. (On the same day as Trump’s visit to the Pentagon, the White House acknowledged International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a statement that omitted mention of the Jews.) Ivanka, meanwhile, may be impeded in her attempt to lobby on behalf of working women by various measures, from Trump’s executive order to dismiss parts of the A.C.A. to his derision of the Women’s March, that appear to have set them back. The question is whether the couple’s combination of unbridled ambition and inexperience will cause them to influence the president as never before, or whether they will be among the first to go."

- The Democrats are babbling and discouraged (WaPo) "The Democrats just can’t get their act together. They have a number of problems; specifically, they don’t have a message or an effective messenger. They are rapidly becoming an anti-white, anti-capitalism party, and they can’t seem to get their footing with any tactical plan."

- President Trump isn’t a fan of dissent — inside or outside the government (WaPo)

- Draft of Trump executive order allows firing based on religion (Reveal)

- There Is No Master Plan (National Review)

- Evan McMullin Is Trying to Save Democracy (New Yorker)

TECHNOLOGY:

- Getting Personal (Wired) "Last-mile solutions often interlock with and complement established steel- and pavement-based mass transit systems, bridging the gap between a transport nexus and the single traveler’s final destination."

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:

- Online Bookies: The Odds Donald Trump Will Be Impeached Are 2:1 (Fast Company)

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