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February 2018

Obama may have wanted to be a transformative President, but Donald J. Trump appears well on his way to owning this title. His administration is now proposing a food delivery program that would replace about half of food stamp benefits for households who qualify for the boxes. The program is referred to as "USDA America's Harvest Box".

Authorities have taken a suspect in custody after a shooting at the NSA complex this morning in Fort Meade, MD. The FBI does not believe this is terrorism, but authorities do not have a motive. The driver is in the hospital while officials have two men in custody who were with the driver.

Earlier today I was reading Prof. Josh Blackman's post responding to criticism he has received for using the term Judicial Resistance, On the Judicial Resistance:
Over the past year, I have discussed at some length the self-professed “legal resistance,” which has coordinated legal strategies to resist President Trump in the courts. This front is part of the broader #Resistance movement against President Trump in the political sphere. These actions are completely rational, and unsurprising from the party that (unexpectedly) lost the election....

President Donald Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn has come back into the news after The Washington Examiner's Byron York reported that former FBI Director James Comey told Congress the department doesn't think Flynn lied to them. Remember the fiasco is over him allegedly speaking to to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition period in December 2016:
On Jan. 24, 2017, two of Comey's FBI agents went to the White House to question Flynn, and there was a lot of speculation later that Flynn lied in that interview, which would be a serious crime.

During a discussion at Columbia University, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blamed a "macho atmosphere" and rampant sexism for Hillary Clinton's 2016 electoral loss. "I think it was difficult for Hillary Clinton to get by even the macho atmosphere prevailing during that campaign, and she was criticized in a way I think no man would have been criticized," she said. "I think anyone who watched that campaign unfold would answer it the same way I did -- Yes, sexism played a prominent part."

I genuinely feel for the single crowd out there trying to date through the #MeToo madness. Because is a date with someone who may misinterpret your flirtatiousness as rape culture worth potentially tanking your career and reputation? This brave new world where day after regret is conflated with sexual misconduct, rape, and harassment, singles are increasingly confused about where the line of acceptable behavior begins. And with good reason.

When I visited the Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan Presidential Libraries during the Christmas season of 2016, I was struck by the appropriate scale of both facilities. The Nixon building was about the size of a metropolitan library and had his childhood home and the Marine One helicopter. Reagan's library was far grander, as befitted a great President with an impressive legacy.