I forgot to publish this… So about this compromising information that Russian intelligence has on Trump. My understanding is that Buzzfeed published the compromising info without any shred of corroboration or source-checking, like you’d expect from Buzzfeed, a place with zero journalistic credibility. Then CNN published a fully fact- and source-checked story that there was potentially-compromising intelligence information being passed around, but leaving out the specifics because they could not corroborate it, like you’d expect from journalists with credibility.

Meryl Streep gave a speech at the Golden Globes yesterday. Trump wrote a bunch of tweets in response. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818419002548568064 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818421066859167746 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818422930157830144 Is it really going to be four years of Hollywood versus Trump? Four entire years? I’ve never really bought into the whole “ivory tower elites” thing but Hollywood really is acting like a bunch of spoiled whiny children lately. But so is the president-elect so I guess it evens out.

FYI I am suffering from Trump Outrage Fatigue, meaning that I’ve seen so much manufactured outrage over the past month about Trump that it’s blurred into one big mass that I can’t even make sense of any more. Sure, there are things to be concerned about, but overall I think “the left” (a gross generalization that I wish I didn’t have to use) is overly worried because of so-called “fake news” that is biased, premature, unsubstantiated, or otherwise lacks sufficient context. (Not even counting news that is made up out of thin air.)

Here’s the basic problem with the Trump presidency so far: Twitter. He really needs to stop talking on Twitter. You see, every time he tweets, I lose a little bit more respect for him and inch a little bit closer to thinking, “Okay, yeah, let’s just get Mike Pence in there. We’ll go to war with Russia pretty quick but at least he’ll keep all his back room political dealings secret like the Founding Fathers intended.”

Incidentally, as a followup to my Election Day Tale, this is how my precinct voted, as of 11/23/2016: (Graph from vpap.org.)

I read an interesting article on The Guardian today about the media’s role in Trump’s election. These kinds of articles are pretty common now, but this one seemed more thoughtful than usual. Essentially they wondered if maybe Trump had been playing the media for chumps the whole time, and maybe they didn’t do a good job covering him. To which I can only respond with, “Duuuuuuuuuuh.” It was incredibly obvious that the media was covering Trump more than any other Republican primary candidate. It was stupifyingly obvious that the media was covering Trump more than Clinton after the conventions. It was mind-numbingly obvious that Trump was taking advantage of all of it. I mean, stunningly, staggeringly obvious.

I’m inclined to agree with Trump that the media is a joke. I’ve seen these patterns repeated quite a lot in the past week: Intereviewer: Thank you for joining us, Important Person Joining The Trump Administration. Did you mean that outrageous thing you said or did in the past that nobody would ever in a million years acknowledge on television? Important Person: Of course not, that’s silly. Interviewer: Do you think that other guy joining the administration meant it when he said or did that outrageous thing in the past that nobody would ever in a million years acknowledge on television?

I updated the Post-Election Timeline.

The Hamilton story blowing up on Twitter today isn’t really worth commenting on. (Fun fact: I haven’t seen or heard Hamilton.) It’s The story is blown way out of proportion (on both sides). https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/799972624713420804 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/799974635274194947 Just my two cents but I think Trump enjoys making the Internet dance to his puppet strings whenever he tweets something. And the Internet appears perfectly willing to dance for him. I’m sure his team is glad to know it will be really easy for them to distract people from any policy mistakes made over his term.

We’ve got three more administration picks from Trump to scrutinize. (Real ones, not speculative ones.) Adding to Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, we now have: Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions (R) as Attorney General. Florida Congressman Mike Pompeo (R) as Director of the CIA. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor. I know nothing about any of those names. Based on the level of Internet outrage from the left, one might assume that three serial killers were nominated. (I think we can safely assume that the left is going to oppose everything Trump does, no matter what it is. Expect to hear the phrase “Trump derangement syndrome” make a triumphant return to discourse from the right.)