How Your Voices Made a Difference: Inexorable Progress

Judging by his customary angry-baby tantrum whenever it looks like the spotlight is about to shine on his misdoings, Donald must be getting pretty nervous about what Steve Bannon might have revealed to author Michael Wolff, whose incendiary new book claims to shed behind-the-scenes light—unflattering light at best—on Donald’s campaign, administration, and person. After an “I know you are but what am I” tweetstorm calling into question Bannon’s sanity (as if no one were questioning it already), Donny desperately tried to block the book’s release, his lawyers sending a cease-and-desist to Bannon and the president of Henry Holt, the publisher. The author, however, responded that he has tapes of Bannon and Donald’s former deputy chief of staff to corroborate, and thanked Donald for making his book an advance bestseller on Amazon; the publisher as a result decided to release the book this past Friday, four days early. This sent Donny into an even greater tizzy, tweeting that he’s “like, really smart” and “a very stable genius” as he bemoaned the fact that libel laws were too lenient, and White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said with a straight face that the fact that people can even besmirch the president was “disgusting,” and—in a coup de grâce of irony—that Donald “believes in making sure that information is accurate before pushing it out as fact, when it certainly and clearly is not.” Meanwhile Breitbart considers whether to fire Bannon, and the Mercer billionaires that back the outlet have severed ties with him, as a panicked White House has banned cell phones from the West Wing. Welcome to the circus.

New revelations indicate that Donald instructed his lawyer Don McGahn, to convince Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia probe, despite the Russian contacts Session lied about, which prompted his resignation. This would constitute obstruction of justice, and Mueller is said to be investigating it as a key element of his probe.

Donald abruptly shut down his sham voting fraud commission, formed after his false claims that it was voter fraud that resulted in his losing the popular vote by 3 million. The commission had been beset by problems since its inception, from its illegal requests of states to provide voter information to lawsuits to its exclusion of Democrats in its functions—and hasn’t produced a scrap of evidence to support its assertions of widespread voter fraud.

Mike Pence and his family were greeted by their neighbors on their Colorado ski vacation with Make America Gay Again banners.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts announced an initiative to protect court employees from sexual harassment after group of nearly 700 former and current law clerks sent Roberts a letter requesting action.

Alabama senator Doug Jones was sworn into the Senate, closing the GOP majority to 51-49…a narrow margin that may shift entirely away from Republicans in 2018.

Washington State’s attorney general has filed suit against Motel 6 for routinely handing over to federal immigration agents info about registered guests without any reasonable suspicion, probable cause or search warrants, including circling names that sounded Latino.

One of the women who accused Roy Moore of statutory sexual contact with her when she was 14 has sued the failed senate candidate for defamation after he attacked her character in the wake of her allegations against him.

Donald’s false or misleading claims while in office are approaching the 2,000 mark, a grim milestone that defines his presidency at a rate of nearly six lies a day. In case America is missing the Orwellian overtones of his reign thus far, Donald gave a video statement at a White House press conference at which he sat 150 feet away. Like the Wizard of Oz.

Fusion GPS published this op-ed in the New York Times defending their investigation that yielded the infamous dossier on Donald (you know the one…complete with golden showers). In it the company discusses the 21 hours of testimony they gave to three congressional committees that the GOP-led committees stifled, and they share some of their testimony the congressional committees have refused to release about the dossier that was funded by Republicans as well as the Clinton campaign.

2017 sucked on many levels, but don’t overlook the big-picture global progress inexorably being made, despite Donald and the minions. And record numbers of women are running or seriously considering running for governor across the country—79, leaving the previous record of 34 (in 1994) in the dust, and dozens of women are running for office in Texas.

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