The president exaggerates his accomplishments in his address to Congress.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/01/factchecking-trumps-state-union/

State of the Union addresses have become Washington kabuki theater at its worst. Everything is for show — the staged applause, the invited guests in the gallery, the self-congratulations, the empty promises. The insincerity on all sides oozes from the chamber. Worst of all may be the chin-stroking pundits who pretend this is significant.

They will intone — if President Trump makes it through the prepared remarks without foaming at the mouth about the Russia investigation — that he was “presidential.” If he could only be like that all the time, they earnestly proclaim. Yes, if Trump were not Trump and spoke others’ words that he likely doesn’t entirely grasp (quick, have him explain what the trade deficit really is), we’d all be better off. But he doesn’t, and we’re not.

Forgotten will be Monday’s events – the reports of a raving Trump calling the wife of acting FBI director Andrew McCabe a “loser;” of the president being irate over the Department of Justice’s attempt to prevent the release of a memo damaging to national security; and of him being determined to fire McCabe, who was told about former FBI director James B. Comey’s conversations with the president, making him a witness to alleged obstruction. Rather than point out that those revelations confirm Trump is temperamentally unfit for the job, and is uninterested in anything other than protecting his own hide, he’ll be patted on the head for reading off a teleprompter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/01/30/you-want-fake-news-watch-the-state-of-the-union/?utm_term=.fa43222cfef4

the same day previous demonstrator whose iconic image went viral is released by regime

A second woman has been arrested in Iran for protesting against the mandatory law that civilians must cover themselves with a hijab while out in public.

Like the first woman detained, she took off her headscarf and held it aloft using a stick on the side of a busy road in Tehran.

The women are part of a wider movement in Iran resisting the Islamic law as social media posts saw a slew of women acting in solidarity by removing their hijabs.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5326465/Second-woman-arrested-Iran-hijab-protest.html#ixzz55g32NOOB
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✔
@AriBerman
How democracy dies:

Undermining domestic institutions

Obstructing independent investigations

Attacking free press

Political system owned by 1%

Rigging Census

Voter suppression

Gerrymandering

Election hacking

7:47 PM - Jan 29, 2018
275 275 Replies 7,477 7,477 Retweets 12,375 12,375 likes

Russian Attacks on 21 States in 2016 Election
Oversight Dems Ask Gowdy to Subpoena Documents Withheld by Trump Administration

Today, all Democratic Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter asking Chairman Trey Gowdy to issue a subpoena to finally compel the Department of Homeland Security to produce documents it has been withholding from Congress for months relating to Russian government-backed efforts to monitor, penetrate, or otherwise hack at least 21 state election systems in the 2016 election.

<snip>

On October 20, 2017, Ranking Members Cummings and Kelly sent a letter requesting copies of the notifications that the Department of Homeland Security provided to 21 states identified as targets of Russian government-linked hacking attempts: Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Illinois, Alaska, Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, and Delaware. They also requested all documents “related to the Russian government-backed attempts to hack state election systems.

In response, the Department provided just one e-mail containing a short script that Department employees apparently read over the phone to state election officials. This script is 13 sentences long and does not refer to any specific state or attack. Rather, it is a generic script that provides no specific information.

On November 29, 2017, during a joint subcommittee hearing on the “Cybersecurity of Voting Machines,” Ranking Member Kelly asked Christopher Krebs, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary of the National Protection and Program Directorate, when these documents would be provided. Although Mr. Krebs assured Ranking Member Kelly that a response would be forthcoming, no further documents were provided.

https://medium.com/oversightdems/russian-attacks-on-21-states-in-2016-election-6e0812498408

Donald Trump has hit back at Jay-Z after the rapper criticised his comments about "s***hole countries."

"Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!" the US President tweeted.

Remarking on Mr Trump's comments in an interview on CNN's The Van Jones Show, Jay-Z said: "It is disappointing and it's hurtful, it really is hurtful.

"Everyone feels anger, but after the anger it's really hurtful because he's looking down on a whole population of people and he's so misinformed because these places have beautiful people."

https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-jay-z-shithole-countries-twitter-black-unemployment-a8182061.html%3famp

The President and the Porn Star
By Eugene Robinson
January 26, 2018

WASHINGTON -- Wait, back up a minute. We just zoomed past a story that would have been a five-alarm scandal for any other administration, with weeks of screaming front-page headlines: "The President and the Porn Star."

The Wall Street Journal had the scoop on Jan. 12: "A lawyer for President Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter."

The porn star in question is a woman named Stormy Daniels. The alleged affair took place in 2006, a year and a half after Trump married his third wife, Melania, and just months after their son Barron was born.

Whoa. You'd think that Trump's supporters in the evangelical movement would finally call him out for his loose -- or nonexistent -- morals. Instead, however, they have suddenly turned into a bunch of Left Bank cafe intellectuals, scoffing at silly American Puritanism as they sip absinthe and flick ashes fro

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/01/26/the_president_and_the_porn_star_136105.html?utm_campaign=notifications&utm_medium=push-notifications&utm_source=new_content