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January 2017

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 04, 2017 39 Comments
During the election cycle, the Clinton Foundation and its funding were a significant issue: After the election, reports were that the donations and the speaking fees were drying up. Perhaps that is why The New York Posts now notes that former President Bill Clinton is offering to match contributions to the foundation in an email plea?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 03, 2017 100 Comments
Earlier today, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly announced she'd be parting ways with the cable news network and heading over to NBC News. Kelly's departure will leave a gaping hole in Fox's prime-time lineup. We’re just speculating here but we’ve picked potential replacements from the Fox News stable of the well-known faces, including news types and ideologues, and one total outsider, Jake Tapper. So, dear reader, we want to hear from you. Who do you think should replace Megyn Kelly?

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 03, 2017 28 Comments
Donald Trump has promised, both himself and through surrogates, to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That move, long promised by American presidents but never implemented, would have particular importance in light of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which the Obama administration pushed behind the scenes and allowed to pass by abstaining. That Resolution purports to declare illegal the Jewish presence even in place such as the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, which was captured by Jordan after Israel declared independence, and then ethnically cleansed of Jews. That ethnic cleansing of Jew along with ransacking and destruction of Jewish religious places, even cemeteries, was remedied when Israel recaptured the area in 1967 after Jordan attacked Israel in support of Egypt and Syria. Israel also recaptured the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism at which Jews are permitted to pray. The UN Resolution declares Israeli control over the Western Wall illegal as well.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 03, 2017 18 Comments
Sean Spicer, who will serve as Donald Trump's White House press secretary, has been invited to the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics by former Obama adviser David Axelrod. Some students are objecting to the appearance for trite and obvious reasons. The Chicago Maroon reported:
Incoming Trump Press Secretary Visit to IOP Sparks Controversy The Institute of Politics (IOP) announced Thursday it is hosting president elect Donald Trump’s choice for press secretary, Sean Spicer, for a discussion with IOP Director David Axelrod first week of winter quarter. The announcement drew criticism from some students who say they may protest the IOP’s perceived normalization of hostility toward the press by the incoming president.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 03, 2017 18 Comments
The House Republicans sure do know how to get the ball rolling on a new session. They kept control, but still can't seem to operate properly! Someone seriously needs to provide a proper communications course for all Republicans in D.C. In one of their first moves, the House Republicans caused a fuss over the weekend after Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) proposed changes to an independent watchdog group, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). According to the media, House Republicans gutted their own independent watchdog group and that Republicans wanted more power. In other words, mass hysteria! A close look at the amendment, which I notice missing from many articles, shows that Goodlatte actually attempted to strengthen the OCE by pushing it farther from the House, thus making it even more independent, and making sure the board does not violate the rights of those accused. But if the Republicans had rolled out the idea a tad better, they may have avoided the backlash and not been forced to retreat with their tails between their legs.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 03, 2017 13 Comments
Ford has announced the company will cancel the $1.6 million plant it planned to build in Mexico. Instead, the company will invest $700 million in Michigan:
Ford (F) CEO Mark Fields said the investment is a "vote of confidence" in the pro-business environment president-elect Donald Trump is creating. However, he stressed Ford did not do any sort of special deal with Trump. "We didn't cut a deal with Trump. We did it for our business," Fields told CNN's Poppy Harlow in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 03, 2017 48 Comments
NBC News has released a statement confirming that Fox News superstar Megyn Kelly will join its news organization:
Kelly will become anchor of a new one hour daytime program that she will develop closely with NBC News colleagues. The show will air Monday through Friday at a time to be announced in the coming months. As part of the multi-year agreement, Kelly will also anchor a new Sunday evening news magazine show and will become an important contributor to NBC’s breaking news coverage as well as the network’s political and special events coverage.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on January 03, 2017 18 Comments
Mike Barnicle learned a lesson the hard way this morning: don't challenge Kellyanne Conway without having all your ducks in a row. It won't end well. On Morning Joe, the subject was the Trump plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Barnicle snidely asked Conway "now, do you or do you not have a replacement plan ready to go, ramped up, ready to go, say tomorrow?" When Conway pointed out that there wasn't a confirmed HHS Secretary in place and that she hoped that the Senate Democrats would cooperate on timely and fair hearings, Barnicle sarcastically responded: "so you're asking the Democrats to be as fair as the Republicans were" at the beginning of the Obama administration? Conway pounced. Interjecting "they were very fair," Conway had at her fingertips the fact that President Obama had seven of his cabinet nominees confirmed on the day he was inaugurated in 2009, and five more within the week. She also cited chapter and verse on the numerous cabinet appointees that were promptly confirmed at the beginning of George W's administration. It was a bravura performance, and Barnicle was heard no more on the subject.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 03, 2017 45 Comments
The most famous The New Yorker magazine image ever clearly has to be a 1976 illustration by Saul Steinberg for the cover depicting the view from 9th Avenue (the West Side) of Manhattan. The landscape of the rest of the country is shown as mere random places on a blank landscape between the Hudson River and the Pacific ocean. Having grown up in the NYC suburbs, I can tell you it was an absolutely accurate visualization of how New Yorkers thought of the country. Jersey was over there, and there were some mountains most of the way across the country somewhere, D.C. was on the way to Florida, and on the other side of the ocean were three countries: China, Japan, and Russia.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 03, 2017 3 Comments
Sweeping police action was needed to prevent the repeat of mass sexual assaults during this year's New Year's Eve celebrations in the city of Cologne, German police said. Police screened and detained arriving passengers at the main railway station as they headed towards the centre of Cologne. Security measures were focused at Arab-North African men. Cologne police detained more than 100 miscreants and ordered at least 1000 to leave the inner city. As no good deed goes unpunished, German politicians and media slammed police for targeting Arab-North African refugees in Cologne. In Merkel's Germany, inconvenience caused to an able-bodied migrant man bothers media and politicians more than the plight of an assaulted and brutalised woman.

Posted by David Gerstman on January 02, 2017 17 Comments
In a New Year's announcement, North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un stated that his nation was on the verge of launching its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) - a missile capable of both carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the United States. This threat could President-elect Donald Trump's first major foreign policy challenge, coming as it does after nuclear bomb tests of varying success by the North Koreans.

Posted by Mary Chastain on January 02, 2017 16 Comments
Reports have indicated that the marching band from Talladega College, Alabama's oldest historically black college, will march at President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. Of course, people have gone irate over the news, even though the school has not confirmed its participation:
"We were a bit horrified to hear of the invitation," said Shirley Ferrill of Fairfield, Alabama, a member of Talladega's Class of 1974. "I don't want my alma mater to give the appearance of supporting him," Ferrill said of Trump on Monday. "Ignore, decline or whatever, but please don't send our band out in our name to do that."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 02, 2017 50 Comments
I didn't vote for Trump. I didn't vote for Hillary. Neither did I vote for the toker nor the litigious left fielder. Not having a horse in the race was incredibly liberating for this former campaign lackey. The single most enjoyable part of Trump's election (thus far) has been the collective lefty meltdown; a glorious sight to behold. First, there were the attempts to overturn the results of the election by way of that whole embarrassing Electoral College coup that never materialized. When the coup fell flat, the entirety of the Democrats and establishment media woke up one Monday and miraculously, simultaneously decided that despite zero evidence, the Russians had "hacked the election" -- whatever that means. Sure they probably hacked into the DNC's emails, but that was old news. Now, and this is probably my favorite, there's talk of impeaching Trump before he's been sworn in.
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