* Yesterday I noted that the Trump administration plans to refocus the program, “Countering Violent Extremism” and rename it “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” excluding attempts to target other groups like white supremacists. The president validated that focus by tweeting this after a man wielding a knife at police officers was shot outside the Louve in Paris:
As Chris Hayes points out, his silence speaks more loudly than his words.
Not *one word* about the Muslims slaughtered in their house of worship by a white supremacist Trump fan. Not one. https://t.co/IO3Bp3N71l
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 3, 2017
* It has only been two weeks, folks.
Beautiful New Yorker cover for next week. https://t.co/oI5AaQ1BXz pic.twitter.com/0Dihek47Mf
— nxthompson (@nxthompson) February 3, 2017
When it’s only your second week at work and everybody in the world already hates you. #FridayReads pic.twitter.com/5xGEizMwhR
— ?????? ???? (@TheBaxterBean) February 3, 2017
* Presidential approval ratings after two weeks. Sad!
* Not only did the Trump administration botch the raid in Yemen last weekend. They botched an attempt to justify it.
The video clips that the U.S. military said were evidence of the success of last week’s raid on an Al Qaeda compound in Yemen have one major problem, the Pentagon acknowledged Friday: They have been on the internet for a decade.
The U.S. Central Command, which posted the video clips, pulled them from the Pentagon’s video website after it was discovered they had been posted in 2007 and were still online on the SITE Intelligence Group website.
The videos and the accompanying CENTCOM statement — which stated the clips were “a small sample of the sort of intelligence information that was obtained in the site exploitation mission” — were the latest effort from the Trump administration to defend the raid on Al Qaeda’s Yemen offshoot in which one Navy SEAL was killed and civilian casualties were reported.
* Remember the yuuuuge scandal about voter fraud that was used to prop up Trump’s damaged ego because he lost the popular vote? Yeah…nevermind.
A full week has passed since President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order opening a Justice Department investigation into his unsubstantiated claim that millions of people voted illegally in November.
The Oval Office signing was abruptly canceled last Thursday and never rescheduled. The White House hasn’t talked about it since. The President has moved on to other subjects.
* Steve Waldman explains how Trump’s promise to repeal the Johnson Amendment would corrupt the pulpit.
…this would likely create a huge new loophole in the campaign finance system. The donations we make to political candidates are not now tax-deductible. But if this provision is repealed, you could make a tax-deductible contribution to a church (or other charity) that is campaigning for a political candidate.
Houses of worship and other charities could become unregulated vessels for campaign contributions, which taxpayers would then have to partly underwrite because they were deductible. It would be a disaster for our political system, already reeking of corruption.
* On a brighter note, it looks like Silicon Valley is joining the resistance.
A collection of Silicon Valley executives, engineers and activists are quietly plotting a progressive counterattack against President Donald Trump, a sign of the industry’s growing anger at his election victory and actions on immigration.
Through a new organization tentatively called Win the Future, or WTF, the likes of LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus are teaming up with former Sierra Club President Adam Werbach to connect political organizers and shore up progressive candidates and causes ahead of the 2018 midterm and 2020 presidential elections, according to three sources familiar with the plan.
* Finally, I don’t know about you, but I need some music to take me into the weekend.
