Jeff Sessions will be a terrible Attorney General. (I've written about him many times, I'm not spending any more keyboard strokes than I have to on him.)

The Senate passed him through committee today.

These are the views of the man about to become Attorney General (from his grilling of Justice Sotomeyer during her nomination hearing.) His best quote (although the munchkin s too brainless to realize it applies to him):

I want to be clear:

I wil1 not vote for-and no senator should vote for-an individual nominated by any President who is not fully committed to fairness and impartia1ity towru·d every person who appears before them.[More...]

Are Donald Trump and his team morons or just ignorant? (I give my personal view at the end.)

Trump's immigration order is being celebrated online by ISIS supporters -- it's just what they want the world to believe -- the U.S. is engaged in a war on Muslims. Way to Go, Donald.

First off, Trump couldn't even pick the right countries. The countries included in his order are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.

Since 9/11, not a single person in the U.S. has been killed by a terrorist who emigrated from these countries or whose family emigrated from these countries. Not one of the 9/11 attackers came from one of these seven countries. [More...]

Typical Donald Trump. He didn't include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the UAE or Jordan in his Executive Order banning Muslims.

Why not? Maybe because Trump Org. has licensed its name to properties in those countries. Wealthy Muslims in those countries helped Donald make money.

In Dubai, Trump International has a golf course and a spa and is building luxury homes and a second golf course.

An American commando has lost his life in a battle with al Qaida in Yemen (not ISIS) in the first authorized military raid of the Trump Administration.

The raid also killed women and children, including the 8 year old daughter of deceased al Qaida preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. (Photo of her vibrant, happy and alive here.)

The ACLU, National Immigration Law Center, International Refugee Assistance Project and other immigrants' rights groups filed a federal lawsuit suit in the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn)seeking declaratory relief and an emergency stay against Donald Trump's executive immigration order. It also asked the Court to certify the case as a class action.

A hearing was held this afternoon before U.S. District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly, who granted the motion for stay and issued an order banning the U.S. from deporting anyone nation-wide who lawfully entered the country from Trump's executive order targeting Muslims from 7 countries, and anyone whose refugee application has been approved.

The Court's Order is here.
The Complaint is here. All other documents as of now are under seal. [More...]

Donald Trump sure knows how to make a mess of things. Mexican President Enrique Pena-Nieto has canceled his trip to the White House where they were going to have talks about trade.

It's amateur hour at the Trump White House. Earlier they suggested a tax for imports to fund the wall. Now, they are backtracking.

Donald Trump needs a muzzle so he can stop outraging the world with his outlandish, ill-considered comments. He has the temperment and self-discipline of a 5 year old. I have work to do, I can't be checking the news every 10 minutes to see his latest buffoonery.

Donald Trump and his incendiary but essentially meaningless border wall talk and executive order do nothing but push people's buttons.

Mexican President Pena Nieto today posted a video message to the Mexican people today on Twitter, saying "As I've said again and again, Mexico will not pay for any wall." (México no pagará por ningún muro".) (Article here.)[More...]

Donald Trump has been given the green light for son-in-law Jared Kushner to serve as his advisor.

Here's the legal opinion of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

(My opinion: Forget Mike Pence. Apparently, America elected Jared Kushner. Trump, who has no clue how to govern, little inclination to learn and even less of an attention span thinks his son-in-law will figure it all out. If not, he can always seek Ivanka's opinion.)

In addition to bringing peace to the Middle East, Superman Kushner is expected to handle "government partnerships with the private sector and matters involving free trade." [More...]

How lazy or shady are Trump staffers working on his Presidential Inaugural Committee? The organizers of the Salute to Our Armed Services Ball couldn't be bothered to come up with even an idea for Trump's Inaugural cake, so they picked out a local bakery and brought them a photo of Obmama's inaugural cake and asked for an exact replica -- no deviations.

“They came to us a couple of weeks ago, which is pretty last minute, and said ‘We have a photo that we would like to replicate,’ ” MacIsaac told The Washington Post by phone. Her bakery tried to encourage the client to use the photo as “inspiration,” as they do with many others, she said.

“They said, ‘Nope, they want this exact cake. It’s perfect.’ And we said, great,” MacIsaac said. Neither she nor her spokeswoman revealed who placed the order.

Duff Goldman (one of the judges on Food Network's kids baking show) who owns a bakery in Baltimore made Obama's cake. He noticed the similarity and tweeted photos of both cakes with a statement he made Obama's cake but didn't make Trumps.

What kind of bakery copies another baker's design and doesn't give credit until after being confronted with the copying? Duff, however, is
now cool with it and congratulated the copycat bakers on their efforts.

The copycat bakers, having been exposed, are now crediting Duff's great design and trying to make amends by donating their profits to Human Rights Campaign.

The copycat bakers' amends do not excuse the laziness or shadiness of the Trump Inaugural employee who placed the order.

The ACLU is ready on Day One. It's filed its first lawsuit demanding documents on Donald Trump.

The public deserves to know if the new president bases any of his decisions on personal gain. So we've taken legal action, demanding Trump documents related to actual or potential conflicts of interest.

[More...]

Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker writes on the Music Donald Trump Can't Hear. He has a point.

There is no song to describe UnPresident Elect Donald Trump because he has no music in his soul. The emotional state he triggers in so many of us, other than his under-informed, radical right supporters, ranges from sickening to terrifying. As the caption to the graphic accompanying the New Yorker article says,

There is an abyss between the man about to assume power and the best shared traditions of the country he represents.

This is not a time to reach out or accept him or the incoming Administration. Kudos to those bailing on Washington this week for other parts of the country. Tens of millions of us will blocking him out at home, with a firm hand on the remote control at all times to ensure he doesn't slip into our consciousness. [More...]

Toronto's Trump Tower, another mega property Trump sold his name to and managed ended up in the hands of a receiver in November. The receiver has just offered it for sale and bids start at $298 million.

A group of owners in the property, who claim to be the victims of misleading marketing, are suing the property’s developer, Talon International and the business organization owned by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, which manages it and licensed the use of its name on the property.

There have been three court actions on the property -- including one trying to remove Trump's name and cancel his management contract.

On Tuesday, an Ontario court placed the Trump International Hotel and Tower into receivership after the owners failed to make debt payments for more than a year. That came after a three-judge panel on the Court of Appeal for Ontario found last month that the project’s investors had been deceived. And in a third legal action, the hotel’s owners tried to remove the Trump name from the building and cancel his company’s contract to manage the hotel.

Shortly after it opened in 2012, the building began "shedding glass."

For the first of many times, the police had to close the surrounding streets because of falling debris.

[More...]