monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

However, in the ABC interview I saw, she was clearly implying that media that were insistent on holding the administration to account (she was refusing to answer a question...it was a loaded question but does anyone seriously doubt that Trump's inauguration crowds were much smaller than Obama's? ) would be limited in their access.

If you seriously think the press secretary didn't come out at the first press conference with an obvious lie, then we will likely never agree on anything so debate probably is a bit pointless.

"The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so." (S. Clemens)

So, you think the more responsible media won't be cowed?

I like her expression "alternative facts".

Quote Finn:
She is a smart, tough and compassionate woman who blatham and Blickers would be praising to the high heavens if she were a progressive...which she most definitely is not.

A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments.

The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the Trump administration that have been initiated or are being planned by major liberal advocacy organizations. Such suits are among the few outlets they have to challenge the administration now that Republicans are in control of the government.

In the new case, the lawyers argue that a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause bans payments from foreign powers like the ones to Mr. Trump’s companies. They cite fears among the framers of the Constitution that United States officials could be corrupted by gifts or payments.

@dlowan
Take a look at this New York Times piece running on the front page today above the fold
NYT link

Speaking later on Saturday in the White House briefing room, Mr. Spicer amplified Mr. Trump’s false claims. “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe,” he said.

There is no evidence to support this claim. Not only was Mr. Trump’s inauguration crowd far smaller than Mr. Obama’s in 2009, but he also drew fewer television viewers in the United States (30.6 million) than Mr. Obama did in 2009 (38 million) and Ronald Reagan did in 1981 (42 million), Nielsen reported. Figures for online viewership were not available

The traditional way of reporting on a president is dead. And Trump’s press secretary killed it.

The presidency is not a reality show, but President Trump on his first full day in office made clear that he’s still obsessed with being what he once proudly called “a ratings machine.”

He cares enough about it to send his press secretary, Sean Spicer, out to brazenly lie to the media in his first official briefing.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said. And he added a scolding about widespread reports that differ from his evidence-free assessment: “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

Crowd size experts estimate Trump’s audience at far fewer than the million or more that Trump is claiming, and at far less than the size of the following day’s women’s march, which the new president has said little about. And side-by-side photographs showed the contrast between the comparatively thin gathering for Trump’s inauguration and the record-setting one in 2009 for former president Barack Obama’s first.

CNN wisely chose not to air the briefing in full, but to report on it and to show parts, providing context. Fox News showed it in its full glory, infomercial style.

CNN wisely chose not to air the briefing in full, but to report on it and to show parts, providing context. Fox News showed it in its full glory, infomercial style.

Republicans no longer have Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to kick around. For years, they were able to direct the country’s discontents toward a president they loathed and then a Democratic nominee they disliked even more.

With control of both elected branches, the GOP, including Trump, is the establishment. Over time, this will make the faux populist anti-establishment appeal of Trump’s inaugural address ring empty.

(see Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics).

The Paranoid Style in Liberal Politics

Whether we are considering taxation, benefits, electoral fraud, or medical care, it seems impossible to debate social issues without a comparable liberal assumption of deep-laid racist plots. In such controversies, conservatives are not just adversaries, they are enemies with far-reaching subversive agendas, whose view deserve no consideration. They are obstacles on the road to a shining future of state-guaranteed justice and equality

By all means, read Hofstadter’s 1964 essay, with its dissection of political lunacy. Note especially his conclusion that “We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.” Was there ever a better anatomy of contemporary liberalism?

“This outpouring today is extraordinary and inspiring. But if all this energy isn't channeled into sustained pol action, it will mean little,” tweeted David Axelrod, the chief strategist behind Barack Obama’s winning campaigns.

They won't be cowed, for the most part. The print media are being very responsible now (and have been for months)...