“Democrats Alex Padilla, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock will be sworn in as new senators on Wednesday afternoon, according to a Senate source” reports Politico’s Kyle Griffin.

One question: Will Warnock or Ossoff be the senior Senator from Georgia? I recall Martha McSally, in one of the few times she acted with any sort of grace, deferred to Krysten Sinema and allowed her to be sworn in first since Sinema had been elected and McSally appointed. Maybe Ossoff does the same since Warnock won by a bigger margin and his race was called first. Or maybe Warnock defers because Ossoff is serving a full term while Warnock is up again in 2022. Padilla should be sworn in last, though maybe order of seniority doesn’t matter all that much at this point when the three of them are Senators number 98, 99, and 100.

Bloomberg: “Hungary’s government chided the publisher of a children’s book that includes a lesbian Cinderella for not warning readers of content referring to non-traditional gender roles. The book, titled Wonderland is for Everyone, recasts protagonists of traditional fairy tales into members of groups that often suffer discrimination, including gays and Roma. It was thrust into the national spotlight last year after a far-right politician shredded the book on camera.”

“‘The book is sold as a children’s book in line with its title and cover but it’s not stated that the fairy tales present patterns of behavior that deviate from traditional gender roles,’ the Budapest Metropolitan Government Agency, whose head is appointed by Orban, said in a statement published on the state news wire MTI on Tuesday. ‘Consumers unwittingly may decide to purchase the book based on misleading information and may encounter content that goes beyond that of traditional fairy tales,’ the agency said. It mandated the book’s publisher to make clear the content of the book. Labrisz, the publisher, said it will challenge the ruling in court, which it said was discriminatory and violated the constitution by stigmatizing a marginalized group of society, according to an emailed statement. Orban is following Poland in pivoting to an anti-gay agenda as he seeks to fire up his right-wing voters a year before elections. A majority of the most recent polls indicated that a united opposition is pulling ahead of the ruling party during the coronavirus crisis.”

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1351540334065577985

Ron Brownstein, CNN: “Donald Trump ends his tumultuous presidency with the nation confronting the greatest strain to its fundamental cohesion since the Civil War. The January 6 assault on the US Capitol capped four years in which Trump relentlessly stoked the nation’s divisions and simultaneously provided oxygen for the growth of White nationalist extremism through his open embrace of racist language and conspiracy theories. In the process, Trump has not only shattered the barriers between the Republican Party and far-right extremists but also enormously intensified a trend that predated him: a growing willingness inside the GOP’s mainstream to employ anti-small-d-democratic means to maintain power in a country demographically evolving away from the party. The result has been to raise the stakes in the ideological polarization of the parties that has been reshaping American politics for decades.”

“Particularly since the 1990s, the parties have steadily pulled apart, with Republicans rallying the voters who are most uneasy with the way America is changing demographically, culturally and economically and Democrats mobilizing those most comfortable with the changes. The Trump presidency, especially its chaotic final months, has shown that both the leaders and rank-and-file voters of the parties are now divided not only by their policy preferences but also by their assessments of the nation’s underlying realities, and even their commitment to the traditional norms of democracy. In one sense, the two parties are moving away from each other in mirror image: Vast majorities of voters in each party now say in polls that they view the other side as a threat to the nation’s future. But that assessment is provoking a more extreme reaction inside the GOP than among Democrats, as different elements of the Republican coalition have embraced a succession of anti-democratic actions culminating in the widespread support among GOP elected officials for Trump’s efforts to subvert the November election and in last week’s unprecedented assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.”

“At noon tomorrow, our four-year experiment in being governed by the political equivalent of the Insane Clown Posse will finally end. It is ending in Juggalo style (some have called it ‘Trumpalo’), violently and pointlessly, with a handful of deaths, the smearing of various bodily fluids, and a riot on the way out. After any bacchanal of this magnitude, the sober dawn is almost as disorienting as the hysteria itself – and the most urgent task, after wiping the shit from the Capitol hallways, is to prevent a repeat performance. First, the Senate must convict Donald Trump. I confess bewilderment that the Senate will have to deliberate at all: inciting an insurrection that threatens to kidnap and possibly murder members of the Senate (including the vice president of the United States) seems to me the kind of activity the Senate should frown upon. Enemies of Ted Cruz like to point out that Trump called his wife a hag and insinuated that his father killed John F. Kennedy, and Cruz cuddled up to Trump anyway. Any senator who excuses his own near lynching by a shirtless, horned shaman will make Cruz’s self-debasement look dignified by comparison.”

“Second, law enforcement should hunt down and charge all the insurrectionists, from the flex-cuff guys and the grannies posing for photos. The vigor with which federal prosecutors have been pursuing them proves that the United States has not been corrupted completely. Prisons exist to hold people such as these. Here ends the easy part. Options for what comes next are harder to imagine, and have left everyone casting into a dark, vacant pool for the right paradigm. The Federalist Papers do not contemplate a Juggalo-in-exile post-presidency, so we search in unlikely places for comparably miserable predicaments to guide us. MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan argues that we should think of Trump’s followers as if they were al-Qaeda members, who move freely among us because they are white, rather than brown and Muslim. The former DHS official Juliette Kayyem agrees that we should treat MAGA as a terrorist movement and Trump as its Osama bin Laden. What do we do with terror movements? ‘Decapitate’ their leadership. In this case she says the decapitation should be figurative: Isolate Trump; embarrass his followers; make Trump repudiate them” – The Atlantic.

Washington Post: “Since Jan. 6, every day has dumped more bad news on the president, including his historic second impeachment. But one person close to the president said it can be hard to predict what will bother him most and that even with all that was going on, he was particularly upset that Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hanks and other stars agreed to perform as part of Biden’s inaugural celebrations.”

“President Trump, in his days as the star of ‘The Apprentice’ reality-TV show, often attended star-studded events. A believer in the power of being associated with marquee names, he hired Elton John and Billy Joel to sing at his and Melania’s wedding in 2005. But his harsh rhetoric, hard-line immigration policy and other stances during the 2016 campaign led Hollywood to largely boycott his inauguration. Now as Trump rages about what he describes as unfair treatment from all sides – from people he hired, from businesses he helped with his policies, from members of his own party and even from celebrities – his wife just shrugs and moves on.”

“As President Donald Trump prepares to leave the White House, 47 percent of Americans say he will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in American history, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll. By comparison, Marist data from December 2016 shows 17 percent of Americans said President Barack Obama had been among the worst chief executives. Four years later, 83 percent of Democrats, 43 percent of independents and 13 percent of Republicans felt Trump had earned that title. And more than half of Americans – 57 percent – disapprove of the job he has done in office” – PBS Newshour.

Daily Beast: “On Monday evening, CNN reported that Trump had recorded a goodbye video, with exact time of publication unclear. According to the cable news outlet, the president doesn’t concede in the video that Biden defeated him fair and square, in yet another instance of Trump perpetuating the gigantic lie that he’s convinced millions to believe or entertain. But with his other public appearances scaled back recently and his personal @realDonaldTrump Twitter account having been taken away from him – permanently, Twitter says – he was left this weekend without his preferred methods for dumping his frustrations and his pet anxieties on the American public. There were no farewell rallies, and the boastful media tour – to highlight his administration’s ‘accomplishments’ that he had discussed with aides and had started plotting shortly after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol – never happened largely due to advisers’ concerns that he could make matters even worse by doing so.”

First Lady @LauraBenanti heads to New York City and fills us in on her post-White House plans. #Benania pic.twitter.com/BtaQw2O6QR

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) January 19, 2021

It’s a hard day for poor li’l Mike Lindell.  First, he got a notice that Dominion Voting Systems was planning on suing him for continuing defamation, and now two major retailers, Kohl’s and Bed, Bath & Beyond, will be dropping his products, WCCO CBS-4 reports.

Talking to someone named Brian Glenn on something called RSB Network, Lindell said that he just got off the phone with the stores, who informed him his products were no longer welcome in their stores, even if you had a 20% off coupon.

“I just got off the phone with Bed Bath & Beyond. They’re dropping My Pillow. Just got off the phone not five minutes ago. Kohl’s, all these different places,” Lindell said. “These [companies], they’re scared, like a Bed Bath & Beyond, they’re scared. They were good partners. In fact, I told them, ‘You guys come back anytime you want.’”

It’s unclear if Lindell with continue to rely on sales through commercials on Fox News which once each commercial break.

“Riley Williams, the Pennsylvania woman accused by a tipster of stealing a laptop from Nancy Pelosi’s office during the insurrection, has been arrested” reports CNN’s Pervaiz Shallwani.

Former attorney general Bill Barr said in an interview with ITV News that he feels Trump’s refusal to accept that he lost the election “precipitated” the coup attempt at the Capitol.

https://youtu.be/6AWHk0c19TU

“I’m sad to see, but not surprised in a way to see, the kind of violence that we saw on Capitol Hill,” Barr said, quick to point out that he was not attorney general when the attack occurred.  Barr went on to say that there are “commonalities” between the primarily-white group of domestic terrorists that attacked the Capitol and Islamic militants. 

Washington Post: “The FBI privately warned law enforcement agencies Monday that far-right extremists have discussed posing as National Guard members in Washington and others have reviewed maps of vulnerable spots in the city – signs of potential efforts to disrupt Wednesday’s inauguration, according to an intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post.”

“The document, a summary of threats that the FBI identified in a Monday intelligence briefing, warned that both ‘lone wolves’ and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, some of whom joined in the violent siege on the Capitol on Jan. 6, have indicated they plan to come to Washington for President-elect Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony. The FBI also said it had observed people downloading and sharing maps of sensitive locations in Washington and discussing how those facilities could be used to interfere in security during the inauguration.”

“President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings” says the White House Daily Press Schedule and Guidance, as it has every day for the past several weeks.

President-elect Joe Biden, about 50 hours away from his inauguration, announced that he would not lift travel restrictions, a move Donald Trump said that he would lift next week, after he was kicked out of office, ABC News reports.

Trump issued a proclamation Monday that he would lift travel restrictions on non-citizens from Brazil, the UK and much of the rest of Europe–areas that are seeing spikes in coronavirus cases–effective January 26th.  Trump will leave office January 20th.

Through his press secretary Jen Psaki, Biden said that he would no allow the bans to be lifted.

“With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” she tweeted. “On the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19.”

• A is for Approval Rating:  Trump’s was never above 50%.
• B is for the Bowling Green Massacre.  We shall never forget.
• C is for Crowd size, an obsession of Trump from Day One in office.
• D is for DeVos, the personification of the the incompetence of Trump’s Cabinet.
• E is for Ewic, because EWIC.  Ewic is the smert one.  
• F is for Fast Food, never to be served at official White House functions again.
• G is for Golf, 150 rounds that he played while in office.  He’s spent more than 320 days at one of his golf courses.  (By comparison, Barack Obama played 105 rounds of golf in his first term.)  

“Asked a source at Dominion if the company is satisfied with the walk-backs by media outlets who received litigation warnings: ‘Dominion found the clarifications from Fox News and NewsMax bizarre and wholly unsatisfying. And OAN has done nothing'” reports The Hill’s John Kruzel.