The 5 craziest hours in the White House

Ready: (Relative) calm before chaos
The 90-plus permanent White House staffers and a few trusted contractors show up around 4 a.m. — some sleep on cots at their workstations — ready to execute the battle plan devised by the chief usher. Although this will be Chief Usher Angella Reid’s first transition, staff turnover at the residence is rare, so most of these folks have done this at least once before.

The kitchen staffers are among the very few who are not pulled into moving duty, because they are already scrambling to create breakfast, the traditional congressional coffee, afternoon snacks, dinner for who-knows-how-many and preparations for the next day’s social events.


(To be clear, we are talking about the residence staff, not the administrative staff. The press secretary does not make the First Family’s beds, and policy advisers do not arrange the president’s sock drawer. However, they probably will schlep their own boxes to their new offices in the East and West wings.)

Member of Republican leadership booted off stage back home in red district over Obamacare repeal

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington state Republican, did not have a kind reception at an MLK Day speech back home in Spokane. It seems her constituents are concerned about her plans for their health care.
Thousands of people gathered at the rally before the planned march through downtown Spokane.
Spokane Mayor David Condon and McMorris Rodgers, the U.S. Representative from Washington's 5th congressional district, both spoke at the rally about unity.
During the rally, attendees were heard booing McMorris Rodgers, yelling the word "liar" and chanting about saving healthcare.

Joe.My.God found the video (you can watch it below). What local station KXLY did not report are the frequent calls of "bullshit" answering McMorris Rodgers’ claims that she's their representative and “advocate.”

Obama makes appearance at final White House press briefing

Obama praises Josh Earnest.

Lady Liberty Depicted as Woman of Color on U.S. Currency

Nina Turner: Trump tweets on John Lewis 'insensitive...

Republicans, in lather over question of Trump's legitimacy, want wait for it Obama to 'step up'

From the Department of You Can’t Make This Crap Up: Republicans are having a major meltdown over questions—particularly from civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis—over the legitimacy of a Trump presidency, and they want President Obama to “step up” and do something about it. (Warning, choking danger: Do not have food or liquids in your mouth while reading this.)

Donald Trump's team is still plenty steamed after a leading House Democrat described Trump as an illegitimate president - and there are now calls for President Barack Obama to act.

Trump's incoming White House chief of staff says the congressman, civil rights leader John Lewis of Georgia, is being "irresponsible" and has started a "firestorm."

Reince Priebus tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that Obama should "step up" and "call it what it is - it's wrong what is happening, it's wrong how some of these Democrats are treating President-elect Trump."

Indeed. It’s time for Barack Obama to step up—for the tiny fingered, popular vote losing puppet of Putin, who spent eight years leading the “birther” jag-off movement—and defend Trump’s legitimacy. He should get right on that.

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Trump sinks drug stocks

Shares of Big Pharma companies and biotechs fell after President-elect Donald Trump put them on notice because of big price hikes for medications.Source: CNNMoney

Fox's Shepard Smith criticizes Trump for 'belittling' CNN

Fox News' Shephard Smith comes to CNN's defense. pic.twitter.com/yIF9e7CNYX

— Mashable News (@MashableNews) January 11, 2017
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith on Wednesday criticized President-elect Donald Trump for his shouting match with a CNN reporter.

Trump refused to take a question from CNN's Jim Acosta during a Wednesday news conference, berating him and accusing his network of reporting "fake news." The confrontation came after CNN reported that intelligence officials briefed Trump about Russia having compromising information on him — a report Trump denied.

"President-elect Trump today told CNN's Jim Acosta the his organization amounts to fake news. CNN's exclusive reporting on the Russian matter was separate and distinctly different from the document dump executed by an online news property," Smith said during his closing monologue.


"Though we at Fox News cannot confirm CNN's report, it is our observation that its correspondents followed journalistic standards and that neither they nor any other journalists should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect of the United States," Smith added.
During the press conference, Trump continuously refused to let Acosta ask him a question.

"You're attacking us, can you give us a question?” Acosta asked.

"Don't be rude. No, I'm not going to give you a question. You are fake news," Trump responded, before taking a question from a Breitbart News reporter.

Joy Reid Delivered Huge Ratings for MSNBC, So They Chose the Fox Reject

If you were waiting for a daily news program featuring a lightweight, partisan hack with absolutely no charisma, then MSNBC really came through for you Monday night.

Greta Van Susteren’s “For the Record” debuted—not to be confused with the Fox show she no longer has--“On the Record”. Despite the preposition change, Van Susteren’s show was pretty much indistinguishable from her old show on Fox. A softball question followed by an occasional harder one that she allowed the guest to evade. I really don’t understand CEO Phillip Griffin’s reasoning for hiring her: she had low ratings with a conservative audience at Fox—does he think she’ll find more conservatives over at MSNBC?

As stupid as that sounds, NBC honchos seem to be doubling down on that strategy. Greta joins Morning Joe, Chris Mathews, and more recently, Megyn “Don’t Worry Kids, Santa isn’t White” Kelly. Pretty good lineup for the demographic of people who are too stupid to realize they aren’t watching Fox.

On the other hand, Joy-Ann Reid is a real hard-hitting journalist who doesn’t know what a softball question is. She is smart, quick on her feet, and can be a pitbull when a guest tries to evade her. She’s also given MSNBC some of their highest numbers in over a decade:

Airing on the weekends from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m., AM Joy delivered the time period’s biggest total viewer audience since the 1st quarter of 2003 and biggest A25-54 audience since Q4 2012.

Despite a crushing election, this nation leans left. Trump was beaten in the popular vote by 3 million votes, and Democrats won the majority of votes in the Senate and House as well. If ratings were based on arcane rules or gerrymandering like our national elections, then yes, MSNBC’s strategy would make sense. But they aren’t. Ratings are actually based on popular opinion. There is a huge market for the American progressive audience---one, I might add, that is not currently being filled.

Instead of trying to peel a few of the age 80+, angry, white racists from Fox, MSNBC could be making a play for the large 25-54 audience who think Trump needs his feet held to the fire over hard-fought programs, civil rights... and just plain civility.

Ironically, MSNBC was in the prime position for this market, and they already had the voice. Joy was already on the payroll, scored big in ratings, and Griffin could have hired her for a fraction of the bloated salary given to Van Susteren.