January 8, 2017

"Seriously" - Leslie Odom, Jr.

How I would love to hear President Obama's farewell appearance to be this raw and powerful. Or maybe as aggressive and in-your-face as Luther, the Anger Translator. Of course, we know it won't. No-Drama Obama will go high just as the Trump proxies this Sunday will go low.

And boy, what lowness there is to consider. Fran shared this FB viral post with the rest of the C&L staff this week:

Many people are exhausted trying to keep up with all of the Trump/GOP shenanigans. I think that is part of their plan: overwhelm us with crap on a daily basis and make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deal with it all. Witness yesterday (1/5/2017):

  1. Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day.
  2. House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES positions, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in Energy and State.
  3. Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest.
  4. House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA.
  5. Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election.
  6. Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it.
  7. Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US.
  8. House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department--for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists not science. Don't like that endangered species designation? Congress kills it.

Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to see IF a single one of the news shows holds anyone from the Trump administration responsible for this bewildering--and growing--list of norm- and ethics-breaking behavior. I don't have much confidence, do you? Hell, I'd be amazed if they even bring it up as something that something that Americans should be aware of.

ABC's "This Week" - President Barack Obama

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Defense Secretary Ash Carter; Kellyanne Conway, adviser to President-elect Donald Trump; Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Panel: NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, frmr Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), NY Times' David Brooks, and CNBC's Rick Santelli.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Reince Preibus, incoming chief of staff to Trump; Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. Intelligence analysis from former acting CIA directors Michael Morell and James Woolsey. Panel: Ezra Klein, the Editor-in-Chief of Vox.com, John Heilemann of Bloomberg Politics, Washington Times columnist and Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce and the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Conway. Panel: Mike Rogers, Neera Tanden, Nina Turner and Rick Santorum

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" -- President of the Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer, editor Tina Brown, WSJ's Foreign Affairs Columnist Bret Stephens, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

"Fox News Sunday" - Preibus; Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Panel: Radio personality Laura Ingraham, AP White House Correspondent Julia Pace, Heritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham, Fox News Contributer Juan Williams.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

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