- Top White House officials knew of abuse allegations against top aide for months (WaPo) "White House Counsel Donald McGahn knew one year ago that staff secretary Rob Porter’s ex-wives were prepared to make damaging accusations about him but allowed him to serve as an influential gatekeeper and aide to President Trump without investigating the accusations, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief of Staff John F. Kelly learned this fall about the allegations of spousal abuse and that they were delaying Porter’s security clearance amid an ongoing FBI investigation. But Kelly handed Porter more responsibilities to control the flow of information to the president. White House spokesman Raj Shah said the White House was allowing the issue to play out through the security-clearance review process, arguing that it was the appropriate place for the allegations and Porter’s denials to be assessed."
- The White House’s Rob Porter debacle is a sign of incompetence or hubris — or both (WaPo) "It would be one thing for the White House to keep its powder dry as Porter faced allegations — to say what Kelly said at the end of his Wednesday statement: That 'every individual deserves the right to defend their reputation.' But the White House decided to, instead, provide Porter a ringing endorsement. It opted to provide the kind of statements you would expect if they were convinced of Porter's innocence. ...whether this was emotion or calculation, it is remarkable just how wrong the White House got this one. Reports indicate that Porter never received a full security clearance, despite his high-ranking role as staff secretary — a gatekeeper serving closely alongside Kelly. The reason, according to The Intercept, is that both ex-wives told the FBI during background interviews that he was abusive."
- John Kelly’s credibility is at risk after defending aide accused of domestic violence (WaPo) "Kelly’s luster has slowly eroded during his roughly six months as Trump’s top staffer — and some White House aides worry it may be acutely painful considering he takes personal pride in his honor as a lifelong public servant. But the cruel irony for Kelly may be that the very credibility that makes him a singular asset in this White House has become irreparably damaged by his work in it. Some senior aides acknowledge this administration has a serious credibility problem, in part because of the president’s erratic nature and propensity to utter falsehoods."
- Unwelcome Attention for John Kelly, the Man Enlisted to Bring Calm (NYT) "For now, it is Mr. Kelly who is in trouble. The president has little tolerance for aides who attract negative media attention that spills onto him, and in recent days Mr. Kelly has drawn a string of unwelcome headlines. He roiled negotiations over immigration legislation by declaring that some immigrants were “too lazy” to apply for legal status. And he initially defended a deputy accused by two ex-wives of physically abusing them."
- The Anti-Porter Conspiracy (National Review) "I’m having trouble understanding why Rob Porter had to resign his job as White House staff secretary (the person who manages the paper flow in the West Wing). Yes, yes, he was credibly accused of domestic abuse by two ex-wives. One produced a photo of her black eye and bruised cheek, the other had phoned 911 when he allegedly punched through the glass of her front door (they were separated) in an effort to break into her house. She obtained a protective order against him. Well, come on, nobody’s perfect."
LIFE:
- Sheryl Sandberg’s Accidental Revolution (Wired) "As Facebook’s chief operator, Sandberg holds one of the most iconic jobs in tech. In the nine years since she joined Facebook, Sandberg launched an ad business that has led the company to be worth $408 billion, helped take the company public, wrote a best-selling book on women in the workforce, and helmed a movement by the same name: Lean In. Sandberg’s whole self was always a bit more polished than everyone else’s. She was a paragon of efficiency. Then she lost her husband. 'All I wanted to do was survive,' she remembers. Just like that, Sandberg, the woman who’d written the book on confidence, had none."
- When You’re a ‘Digital Nomad,’ the World Is Your Office (NYT) "More than a mere chain of upscale hostels, Roam signals the crystallization of a moment long in the making. Roam aims to make dislocation easy and glamorous, transforming digital nomadism into a mainstream, off-the-rack proposition. With the rise of smartphones, roaming data plans and cheaper air travel, this strategy has proved popular. Nomad hubs have been cropping up anywhere a low cost of living intersects with a high quality of life, most often in Southeast Asia..."
- Our personalities are shaped by the climate we grew up in, new study says (WaPo) "Specifically, people who grew up in regions with average temperatures close to 72 degrees tend to be more agreeable, conscientiousness, emotionally stable, extroverted and open. These personality traits are what psychologists refer to as 'the big five.'"
NEWS:
- Ben Carson, or the tale of the disappearing Cabinet secretary (WaPo) "He [Carson], like the president, came to power by promising that an outsider would have the 'common sense' it takes to cure what ails us. In his new role, Carson still sees himself as a warrior against impending doom, but he’s battling contradictions on the side. He wants to be a good steward for an agency he calls the 'philanthropic' arm of the government, even if he doesn’t think of the government as a philanthropy."
TECHNOLOGY:
- How Cloud Computing Is Changing Management (HBR) "Likely outcomes of the move to cloud include changing how products are designed; closer collaboration between the corporate IT department and other business units, including sales, finance and forecasting; and more customer interaction, even to a point of jointly developing products with their consumers. In particular, new ways of writing and deploying software will encourage new types of faster-acting organizational designs. And the best way to anticipate how these changes will occur is to hear from companies already aggressively implementing them."
- “It’s not a drug, but it may as well be”: Expert opinions on whether kids are addicted to tech (Quartz) "Lustig studies what happens to our brains when they’re addicted, be it to sugar or heroin. He’s found that the brain responds to technology much in the same way it responds to other addictive substances."
WINTER OLYMPICS:
- Team U.S.A Has Chosen Its Winter Olympics Flag Bearer (Time) "Olympic veteran and bronze medalist Erin Hamlin has been named the flag bearer for Team USA at the...Olympics opening ceremony on Friday... Hamlin was chosen to be the U.S. flag bearer after a vote by her teammates. and Shani Davis says U.S. flagbearer decision done 'dishonorably' off a coin toss (Chicago Tribune) "Hamlin and Davis were among eight nominees for the flagbearer role, and athletes from each of the eight winter sports federations — bobsled and skeleton, ski and snowboarding, figure skating, curling, biathlon, hockey, speedskating and luge — represented those nominees in a balloting that took place Wednesday night."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- ‘Haunted by tweets every single day’: Omarosa dishes to another ‘Big Brother’ contestant about her White House days (WaPo) "'There's a lot of people that want to stab me in the back, kind of similar to the White House,' Manigualt Newman during her first day in the house. 'The one thing that I learned from politics is you have to watch your back, and sometimes you have to watch your front, too.'"
- 2018’s new emoji will end the neglect of redheads (The Verge) "The 157 new emoji will join the 2,666 already in existence when the Unicode 11.0 standard is released in June. The emoji standard is rather like an alphabet, and the way each icon looks on your iPhone depends on how Apple interprets and represents it. Similarly, it’s up to Google to decide how emoji should look on its Android devices, and many Android phone makers also choose to design custom emoji of their own."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Voices Carry (Til Tuesday)
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