Donald Trump continues to exploit the WH for personal gain, as media sort of covers it in fits and starts. But, hey, Hillary Clinton (the popular vote winner) used email.
David Fahrenthold/WaPo has been on this consistently:
Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on ‘self-dealing,’ new filing to IRS shows
President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the IRS that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families.
That admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Bockius.
The Post could not immediately confirm if the same forms had actually been sent to the IRS.
Adam Liptak/NY Times:
Donald Trump’s Business Dealings Test a Constitutional Limit
Not long after he took office, President Obama sought advice from the Justice Department about a potential conflict of interest involving a foreign government. He wanted to know whether he could accept the Nobel Peace Prize.
The answer turned on the Emoluments Clause, an obscure provision of the Constitution that now poses risks for President-elect Donald J. Trump should he continue to reap benefits from transactions with companies controlled by foreign governments.
“Emolument” means compensation for labor or services. And the clause says that “no person holding any office of profit or trust” shall “accept of any present, emolument, office or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince or foreign state” unless Congress consents.
It took David J. Barron, a Justice Department official who is now a federal appeals court judge in Boston, 13 single-spaced pages to answer Mr. Obama’s question…
Lawmakers could take steps short of impeachment, particularly because the clause itself describes a role for Congress, which can give its consent to payments that would otherwise be barred. Mr. Painter said Congress should embrace that role by passing a resolution directed at Mr. Trump.
Jesse Singal/NY Magazine with a great read:
Why Some Protests Succeed While Others Fail
Which raises some obvious questions: What is the best, most efficient way to channel this energy? What makes protests work, and what makes them backfire and solidify opinion against the protesters? The answers to these questions, drawn from the research of scholars who have dedicated their careers to in-depth interviews with activists, protesters, and organizers, can both offer guidance to those spearheading the movement against Trump, and offer some interesting glimpses into the surprising political psychology of resistance.
Atlantic:
'Hail Trump!': White Nationalists Salute the President Elect
Video of an alt-right conference in Washington, D.C., where Trump’s victory was met with cheers and Nazi salutes.
“Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
That’s how Richard B. Spencer saluted more than 200 attendees on Saturday, gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”
I’m old enough to remember when this alone would lose an election.
Dan Drezner/WaPo:
The tricky political optics of resisting Donald Trump
Many experts are warning about what Trump portends for America. Let me offer a warning about those warnings.
Politico’s Jack Shafer, reacting to the Hamilton kerfuffle, thinks that Trump’s critics are falling right into his trap:
For anybody who has read a half-dozen of Trump’s tweets, the pattern is obvious. He compiles these tweets precisely in order to elicit strident protest. It doesn’t matter to Trump that the cast of Hamilton was polite and respectful to Pence. It doesn’t matter that being rude to office holders is an inalienable right — hell, a responsibility! — of all Americans. To Trump’s followers the content of any one of his rebukes matters less than whom it’s directed at — New York liberals and their fellow travelers in this instance.
Shafer focused on Trump’s antics on Twitter, but as someone who shares my colleagues’ concerns about what Trump means for our constitutional democracy, I want to raise a deeper issue. Because if Trump’s critics are going to be trying to constrain someone whose mindset is that “politics is war,” it might be worth thinking about tactics for a spell.
My feeling is protest the appointments now when it can matter, and policy later.
Guardian:
Trump v the media: did his tactics mortally wound the fourth estate?
From a bonanza of free airtime to an overt media campaign against him, Donald Trump was a candidate covered like no other. But were journalists unwitting accomplices in his election? And where does the industry go from here?
Put all these indicators together, and you start to wonder whether Donald Trump’s unlikely victory has sounded the death knell for the influence and authority of what he and his supporters scathingly call the “mainstream media”. Did the “MSM”, in particular cable TV which broadcast his every cough and spittle with almost obsessive dedication, help put him in the White House? Conversely, did the press go too far in abandoning its traditional even-handedness and unrestrainedly attacking Trump, as rightwing pundits are now suggesting? Looking forward, what will be the role of the established media as we head into the chilly waters of a choppy new era?
Those are just some of the glaring questions left hanging at the end of an epically weird election season. To begin poking some of those issues, the Guardian has teamed up with the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), a leading source of media criticism.
It has compiled a unique oral history of the 2016 election through the eyes of 40 of the top TV and press editors, reporters and columnists who helped shape and define the public perception of this year’s race. The narrative runs to 11,000 words, with the Guardian publishing an edited version of it.
David Leonhardt/NY Times on tacking blue collar issues with more than lip service (in this case in DE):
But having a major can also help students who don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. It connects book learning to real life. It can help launch them into college or a certificate program and avoid the epidemic of academic drift. No wonder enrollment at William Penn has improved.
Kiara Roach, a senior, told me that she didn’t care about her grades, or do very well, until she became passionate about cooking. (As she told me this, I was enjoying a moist pork sandwich in a teacher cafe she helps run.) Mike Rodriguez, who one day hopes to start a heating-and-cooling business, said: “I get bored in class. I like standing up and working on something.” Jacob Sobolesky, a junior, told me: “There’s only so much you can learn from word of mouth.”
Many people in New Castle, not to mention the industrial Midwest, feel a deep cultural connection to craftsmanship — to making things and working with their hands. They’re not inspired by working in cubicles or comfortable offices.
At the same time, they can’t simply do as previous generations did and graduate from high school into a good job. They can’t bring back yesterday’s economy. They need blue-collar skill-building to thrive.
The country has failed to provide nearly enough of that skill-building, and we’re all living with the consequences.