Today’s comic by Ruben Bolling is The new view from Trump Tower:
• Greenpeace protesters arrested for raising White House “RESIST” banner: Having generated one of the best resistance images so far against the Trump regime by hanging a banner from a construction crane a few blocks from the White House. The banner was highly visible for several hours while the protesters occupied the crane, hoping their message would get under the pr*sident’s notoriously thin skin. They came down around 10 PM ET. Police arrested them on charges of second-degree burglary, unlawful entry and destruction of property.
• Journalists join Slack channel dedicated to the Freedom of Information Act and Trump. As of Thursday, 1,500 people had signed up:
"Anytime we have a new administration, there's turnover and there are changes," said Michael Morisy, MuckRock's co-founder. "I always think it's important for reporters to get an understating of what that new administration's priorities are. I think that's true no matter who's taking office."
The open-government nonprofit first launched the channel with a small group of people about a week after Trump won the election. The channel works to help build requests, workshop ideas, ask questions and share results. It's a collaborative approach for journalists that MuckRock has seen more of in the last few years.
• Mississippi Republican reduce Democratic AG’s clout:
The GOP-led state House [...] Wednesday and passed a bill that would require the attorney general, the lone Democrat to hold statewide office, to receive permission from a three-member board before filing any lawsuit that might have at least a $250,000 award. [...]
The board's three members would be the governor, the lieutenant governor and the secretary of state. [...]
"Obviously, House leadership and proponents of this bill bow down to their corporate masters, and it's unfortunate that this bill's supporters put such pressure on conscientious Republican legislators to change their vote," [AG Jim] Hood said in a statement.
• Can anything be sadder?
• Chinese send fake tweets to Trump, New Year wishes:
In China, Twitter is blocked but fake tweets by @realdonaldtrump look set to become the latest internet sensation.
Users are flocking to websites that let them generate images of fake tweets that look just like those sent from U.S. President Donald Trump's distinctive personal Twitter account — replete with his avatar and a real-time timestamp.
• Ravens’ Justin Tucker completes 75-yard field goal in Pro Bowl practice.
• Run for Something initiated to get recruit millennials to run as Democratic candidates:
Run for Something's mission is not to stop Trump in 2020, at least not directly. Its focus is on local races, where Democrats have been creamed over the last eight years, losing some 935 state legislative seats during the Obama era. In 2017, it is focusing its efforts on Virginia and North Carolina, two places where Democratic gains at the state level (the party controls the governor's mansion in both states) are undercut by conservative legislatures. In Virginia, a blue state in the last three presidential elections, Democrats have failed even to show up in some races: 44 of the state's 67 Republican delegates ran unopposed in 2015, including three Republicans in districts carried by Hillary Clinton. Democrats have a long way to go to recoup what they lost, but they've also left a lot of low-hanging fruit on the vine.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin notes growing media awareness that… something’s wrong with Trump. Scientists are moved to action, and civil servants go rogue. The “executive orders” turn out to be fanboy wishlists. And something, something, Berhard Langer.
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