- Is the Anti-Trump 'Resistance' the New Tea Party? (Atlantic) "The parallels are striking: a massive grassroots movement, many of its members new to activism, that feeds primarily off fear and reaction. Misunderstood by the media and both parties, it wreaks havoc on its ostensible allies, even as it reenergizes their moribund political prospects; they can ride the wave, but they cannot control it, and they are often at the mercy of its most unreasonable fringe. It’s too soon to tell if the current resistance movement will follow the Tea Party’s pattern. But there are already many parallels. It has arisen spontaneously and en masse. Second, Trump’s election appears to have galvanized a lot of people who weren't previously Democratic activists or politically minded at all. Third, while Trump’s Cabinet, executive actions, and Supreme Court nominee are sharply and traditionally right-wing, he has an agenda his team believes is truly cross-partisan. But the movement is already urging Democrats to massively resist, and they are listening."
- How a Fractious Women’s Movement Came to Lead the Left (NYT) "That it happened on the day after his inauguration was not surprising. What was striking was that all these people had come together under the auspices of a march for women. In this moment, it happened that 'women' was the one tent large enough to contain almost every major strain of protest against Trump. Clinton’s loss on Nov. 8 was a pivotal, identity-shifting moment in the course of the American women’s movement. In an evening, the would-be first female president was shoved to the side by what a sizable chunk of the nation saw as that classic historical figure: the male chauvinist pig. In parts of the popular imagination, it wasn’t just a loss for Clinton or for the Democratic Party. It was a repudiation of feminism itself. When Clinton lost, pop feminism suffered a crisis. Ninety-four percent of black women voted for Clinton, but 53 percent of white women voted for Trump, perhaps more likely to see themselves in his vision of the world than in the pop feminism that fed Clinton’s campaign. There has never been one women’s movement. But for the moment, at least, Trump appears to be the great uniter. In the days and weeks since the march, its energy spilled into spontaneous actions across the country..."
- A blueprint for resistance to Trump has emerged. Here’s what it looks like. (WaPo) "1) Have (guarded) faith in our system. 2) Keep pressuring Republicans to exercise real oversight on Trump. 3) Fight hard in the Senate with all available procedural weapons. 4) Keep looking to civil society and try to fortify it where possible. 5) Keep Trump distracted and off balance, to minimize the damage he can do."
- Swarming crowds and hostile questions are the new normal at GOP town halls (WaPo) "Angry constituents swarmed events held by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.). They filled the rooms that had been reserved for them; in Utah and Tennessee, scores of activists were locked out. What was less clear was where it would all go. If nothing else, the size and tone of the crowds fed Republicans’ worries and Democrats’ view that the GOP agenda, coupled with the president’s tone and missteps, have activated voters who may have sat out previous elections."
- A gift and a challenge for Democrats: A restive, active and aggressive base (WaPo) "Less clear is how Democrats will convert political action into electoral results. Much has been said about the failures of 2016 — chief among them the flawed belief that bashing Trump was enough, and the absence of a coherent economic message. Yet even now, at every level of national Democratic politics, the discussion of how the party can win back voters it lost is subsumed by the argument about how to oppose Trump. The answer is always: As much as possible."
- D.N.C. Contenders Agree on One Thing: Resistance to Trump (NYT)
BUSINESS/ECONOMY:
- Trump’s Economic Cabinet Is Mostly Bare. This Man Fills the Void (NYT) "People with knowledge of his new role said that Mr. Cohn, a Democrat, is summoned to the Oval Office for impromptu meetings with the president up to five times a day — and that he reaches out to the president on other occasions. Mr. Trump, said one of these people, is oriented toward the bottom line when it comes to shaping policy, often asking Mr. Cohn, 'What do you want to do?' Topping Mr. Cohn’s current to-do list: corporate and individual tax reforms, to be carried out at the same time; improvements to infrastructure to create new jobs; and regulatory relief in general. Mr. Cohn collaborates frequently with Mr. Kushner, who is now a senior adviser to Mr. Trump. Along with Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, Mr. Cohn recently helped persuade the president not to pursue an executive order that would have rolled back rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- A group of prominent Republicans has an excellent plan to fight climate change (WaPo) "Instead of indulging in the fiction that carbon emissions will take care of themselves with minimal government intervention, these veteran Republican hands endorsed what economists insist is the best approach to dealing with the sprawling carbon emissions issue: a carbon tax. The council’s plan would initially peg the tax at $40 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions — which, the group’s experts say, equates to about 36 cents per gallon of gasoline — and set it to rise at a steady rate year after year. The total picture, then, is a policy that would defuse the climate issue for Republicans, without growing government revenue, while rolling back energy regulations and sending Americans a regular check in the mail. The council reckons that those checks would make the vast majority of Americans, and particularly those with lower incomes, whole or better, after subtracting out what they paid in carbon taxes. These dyed-in-the-wool Republicans have proposed an elegant climate policy that addresses an issue of widespread concern and poses no threat to conservative ideology. The rest of their party should listen."
IN (OR OUT) LIKE FLYNN...?
- National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say (WaPo) "Pence also made a more sweeping assertion, saying there had been no contact between members of Trump’s team and Russia during the campaign. To suggest otherwise, he said, 'is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.' Neither of those assertions is consistent with the fuller account of Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak provided by officials who had access to reports from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies that routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats. Nine current and former officials, who were in senior positions at multiple agencies at the time of the calls, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. All of those officials said Flynn’s references to the election-related sanctions were explicit. Two of those officials went further, saying that Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to the penalties being imposed by President Barack Obama, making clear that the two sides would be in position to review the matter after Trump was sworn in as president. Official concern about Flynn’s interactions with Kislyak was heightened when Putin declared on Dec. 30 that Moscow would not retaliate after the Obama administration announced a day earlier the expulsion of 35 suspected Russian spies and the forced closure of Russian-owned compounds in Maryland and New York. Putin’s reaction cut against a long practice of reciprocation on diplomatic expulsions, and came after his foreign minister had vowed that there would be reprisals against the United States."
- Flynn Is Said to Have Talked to Russians About Sanctions Before Trump Took Office (NYT) "Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynn’s comments, since he would have known that American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trump’s team publicly denied that the conversation involved sanctions."
- Flynn holds call with Pence amid calls for probes of contacts with Russian ambassador (WaPo) "National security adviser Michael Flynn spoke privately with Vice President Pence on Friday in an apparent attempt to contain the fallout from the disclosure that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with that country’s ambassador and then allowed Pence and other White House officials to publicly deny that he had done so, an administration official said."
- Just how much trouble is Michael Flynn in? (WaPo) "This story isn't going away, however. And it's hard to see how Flynn or Trump will be able to simply dismiss it as 'fake news' produced by a biased media given the depth and breadth of the sourcing on the Post story. ...things look to be getting worse, not better, for Flynn."
- America’s So-Called National Security Adviser (NYT) "Now we have learned that in the weeks before the inauguration, Mr. Flynn discussed American sanctions on Russia, and areas of possible cooperation, with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. They spoke a day before President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for hacking the Democrats’ computers, probably in an effort to sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor. Mr. Flynn’s underhanded, possibly illegal message was that the Obama administration was Russia’s adversary, and that would change under Mr. Trump and that any sanctions could be undone. The result seems to be that Russia decided not to retaliate with its own sanctions. By consorting with the Kremlin after it interfered in the election, Mr. Flynn may have violated the Logan Act, which prohibits citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes involving the American government. The episode has also showed that Mr. Flynn has utter disregard for the truth. On Wednesday, he twice told The Post 'no' when asked if he discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak. But the next day, a spokesman said Mr. Flynn 'couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.'"
- Does the White House stand by Michael Flynn? ‘That’s a question for the president’ (WaPo) "'Once again, I am calling on the FBI to investigate the financial, political and personal ties between President Donald Trump and Russia. The American people deserve the truth,' she said in a statement. 'President Trump’s kowtowing to Vladimir Putin is endangering our national security and emboldening a dangerous tyrant. What do the Russians have on President Trump that he would flirt with lifting sanctions and weakening NATO?' On ABC, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) agreed that suspending Flynn’s clearance be 'an appropriate action.' Cummings added that any investigation of Flynn would have to also account for whether Trump authorized his top security adviser to discuss sanctions with Russian officials."
- Michael Flynn’s truly horrible week in Washington (WaPo) "The truth always comes out. That reporting, which emanated from nine intelligence sources, ran directly counter to Flynn's assertion that sanctions had never come up during his various in-person, text and phone conversations with Kislyak during the presidential transition in December. Michael Flynn, for forgetting the coverup is always worse, you had the Worst Week in Washington. Congrats, or something."
NEWS:
- Trump vexed by challenges, scale of government (Politico) "In interviews, nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks. Yet it has become apparent, say those close to the president...that the transition from overseeing a family business to running the country has been tough on him. Trump often asks simple questions about policies, proposals and personnel. And, when discussions get bogged down in details, the president has been known to quickly change the subject — to 'seem in control at all times,' one senior government official said — or direct questions about details to his chief strategist Steve Bannon, his son-in-law Jared Kushner or House Speaker Paul Ryan. Trump has privately expressed disbelief over the ability of judges, bureaucrats or lawmakers to delay — or even stop — him from filling positions and implementing policies. The interviews paint a picture of a powder-keg of a workplace where job duties are unclear, morale among some is low, factionalism is rampant and exhaustion is running high. In Washington circles, talk has turned to whether a staff shake-up is in the works. Those closest to the president are unnerved by that prospect, which they say would be a tacit acknowledgment that their team is struggling."
- Trump friend says Priebus is ‘in way over his head’ (WaPo) "'I think there’s a lot of weakness coming out of the chief of staff,' Ruddy told anchor Brian Stelter in a live interview from Miami. 'I think Reince Priebus [is a] good guy, well-intentioned, but he clearly doesn’t know how the federal agencies work. He doesn’t have a really good system. He doesn’t know how the communications flow.' Ruddy — who is chief executive of Newsmax Media and a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. — spoke to The Post shortly after appearing on CNN, where he threw Priebus under the proverbial bus."
- U.S. investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier (CNN) "None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given U.S. intelligence and law enforcement 'greater confidence' in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say. Until now, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have said they could not verify any parts of the dossier." and White House goes authoritarian on CNN scoop about Russia dossier (WaPo) "So what did White House press secretary Sean Spicer say? 'We continue to be disgusted by CNN’s fake news reporting.'"
- Stephen Miller Is a ‘True Believer’ Behind Core Trump Policies (NYT) "The ascent of Mr. Miller from far-right gadfly with little policy experience to the president’s senior policy adviser came as a shock to many of the staff members who knew him from his seven years in the Senate. A man whose emails were, until recently, considered spam by many of his Republican peers is now shaping the Trump administration’s core domestic policies with his economic nationalism and hard-line positions on immigration." and Stephen Miller: A key engineer for Trump’s ‘America first’ agenda (WaPo) "He produced a canon of searing columns on race, gender and other hot-button issues and, at Duke, became known to Fox News viewers as a leading defender of the white lacrosse players wrongfully accused of raping a black stripper. By his late 20s, Miller was a key aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), helping to torpedo a long-sought goal of immigrant advocacy groups to put millions of unauthorized Hispanic immigrants on a path to citizenship."
- Trump Foreign Policy Quickly Loses Its Sharp Edge (NYT) "On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump fell back into line. In a call with President Xi Jinping of China, he pledged fealty to One China, a 44-year-old policy under which the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed its diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Mr. Trump has also tacked to the center on Israel. And on Iran, where Mr. Trump threatened as a candidate to rip up the nuclear deal struck by President Barack Obama, advisers to the new president told the European Union’s top foreign policy official, Federica Mogherini, that the United States would fully carry out the agreement. As Mr. Trump begins to shape his foreign policy, he is proving to be less of a radical than either his campaign statements or his tempestuous early phone calls with foreign leaders would suggest."
- Andrew Sullivan: The Madness of King Donald (NY Mag) "Trump’s lies are different. They are direct refutations of reality — and their propagation and repetition is about enforcing his power rather than wriggling out of a political conundrum. They are attacks on the very possibility of a reasoned discourse, the kind of bald-faced lies that authoritarians issue as a way to test loyalty and force their subjects into submission. I think this is a fundamental reason why so many of us have been so unsettled, anxious, and near panic these past few months. It is not so much this president’s agenda. That always changes from administration to administration. It is that when the lynchpin of an entire country is literally delusional, clinically deceptive, and responds to any attempt to correct the record with rage and vengeance, everyone is always on edge."
- The Media’s Risky Love Affair With Leaks (NYT) "Leaks are most often an outsider’s tool, and they look different from a vantage of power. As a candidate, Trump mentioned WikiLeaks frequently and approvingly at rallies, in interviews and in two out of three presidential debates. Now that Trump is president, his public flirtation with leaks has given way to his deeper and longer-held instincts for secrecy — his early presidency, like his campaign, has used sweeping nondisclosure agreements to an unusual degree. The media’s relationship to leaks is, likewise, under construction. The dangers presented by leaks are clearly not lost on the Trump administration, but neither are the opportunities." and Trump administration seen as more truthful than news media: poll (The Hill)
- Congressman: Rarely used law could make Trump tax returns public (USA Today) "The 1924 law gives congressional committees that set tax policy the power to examine tax returns. It was used in 1974 when Congress looked at President Richard Nixon's returns, and in 2014 when the Ways and Means Committee released confidential tax information as part of its investigation into the Internal Revenue Service's handling of applications for nonprofit status. 'If I get a ‘no’ answer on this, I’ll be very honest with you: If these guys think I’m walking away from this, they’re absolutely nuts,' Pascrell said. 'The calls we’re getting, the calls other congressmen are getting, it’s unbelievable, we never expected this.'"
- Backing Into World War III (Foreign Policy) "History shows that world orders do collapse, however, and when they do it is often unexpected, rapid, and violent. Are we three years away from a global crisis, or 15? That we are somewhere on that path, however, is unmistakable. The American-led system of political and military alliances, especially in the two critical regions of Europe and East Asia, has presented China and Russia with what Dean Acheson once referred to as 'situations of strength' that have required them to pursue their ambitions cautiously and, since the end of the Cold War, to defer serious efforts to disrupt the international system. The greatest check on Chinese and Russian ambitions has been the military and economic power of the United States and its allies in Europe and Asia. When united, these U.S.-led alliances present a daunting challenge to a revisionist power that can call on few allies of its own for assistance. So long as the United States was perceived as a dependable ally, Chinese and Russian leaders feared that aggressive moves would backfire and possibly bring their regimes down. The United States stepped up, and Russia and China largely backed down — or were preempted before acting at all. Now, the question is whether the United States is willing to continue upholding the order that it created and which depends entirely on American power or whether Americans are prepared to take the risk — if they even understand the risk — of letting the order collapse into chaos and conflict. The weakness at the core of the democratic world and the shedding by the United States of global responsibilities have already encouraged a more aggressive revisionism by the dissatisfied powers. It remains true today as it has since World War II that only the United States has the capacity and the unique geographical advantages to provide global security and relative stability. There is no stable balance of power in Europe or Asia without the United States."
- Bernie Sanders calls Trump a ‘pathological liar'; Al Franken says ‘a few’ Republicans think Trump is mentally ill (WaPo)
- The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins (Observer)
TECHNOLOGY:
- The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet. It’s the End of the Middle Class (Wired) "But the researchers at Asilomar were also concerned with more immediate matters: the effect of AI on the economy. At a time when the Trump administration is promising to make America great again by restoring old-school manufacturing jobs, AI researchers aren’t taking him too seriously. They know that these jobs are never coming back, thanks in no small part to their own research, which will eliminate so many other kinds of jobs in the years to come, as well. The problem isn’t immigration—far from it. The problem isn’t offshoring or taxes or regulation. It’s technology. ...newly collected data that shows a sharp decline in middle class job creation since the 1980s. Now, most new jobs are either at the very low end of the pay scale or the very high end. He also argued that these trends are reversible, that improved education and a greater emphasis on entrepreneurship and research can help feed new engines of growth, that economies have overcome the rise of new technologies before."
- How Silicon Valley Can Take Down Trump (Vanity Fair) "On the morning of January 18, 2012, millions of Americans started their day just like any other... But when they checked their e-mail, scrolled through the news, or searched for a new bicycle on Craigslist, the Web was largely covered in black. Google had placed a black rectangle over its polychromatic logo; Wikipedia’s Web site was turned black; and Craigslist was shuttered. This was all a response to two proposed congressional laws—the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, or PIPA—which would have had devastating effects on the way we all use the Web. This was the first time that tech companies had used their considerable tools and influence to retaliate against the government in such a broad manner. And boy, did it work. This moment, four years ago, provided a powerful and collective epiphany for Silicon Valley. Technology companies were largely astounded by their ability to wield power over lawmakers. Yet since that day in 2012, there has not been any similar outcry..."
- How Canada is trying to capitalize on Trump’s immigration executive order (WaPo) "Tech companies that keep satellite offices in Vancouver, just a two-hour flight from San Francisco, are exploring whether to move more jobs over the border. Immigration lawyers are reporting a steep uptick in inquiries. And a start-up is offering to smooth the way, for $6,000 a person, for foreign-born tech workers worried their U.S. visas may disappear."
- How Google Chromebooks conquered schools (WaPo) "Chromebooks use a lightweight operating system designed to get people online faster, without having to wait around for the computer to start up. They’re easier for classrooms to share; just sign in with a Google account, and a student’s apps and documents instantly appear. Teachers also have online tools to lock down what apps and sites students can use."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Kellyanne Conway’s Battle for Trump’s Favor (New Yorker) "Bannon and Priebus represent well-defined camps in the White House, but Conway has attempted to straddle the divide. 'Kellyanne is more of a floater,' one Republican close to the White House said. 'She’s more for the party of Kellyanne, most of the time.' Her ultimate source of power comes from Trump. What he would say in front of the large group was more important than what Spicer said from the podium."
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