Question for the room: Does Donald Trump have his Pete Souza yet? That is to say, has he chosen a White House photographer? The only pix from the White House I’m seeing are the ones of him signing executive orders with his flunkies arrayed in a half-circle behind him. Pence always stands on his right, and applauds like the toady he is.

The pictures are unremarkable, wire-service stuff. The White House’s Flickr photo stream is empty, so I have to assume that this is one of those still-unfilled positions, like most of the East Wing staff.

And if you’re one of those people who doesn’t know who Pete Souza is, here’s part of his 2016 White House portfolio. I don’t recommend it if you’re feeling …emotional.

Especially this week, when yet another of the 10,000 veils dropped between the American public and the Trump administration. Yes, I’m talking about Natasha, makin’ money. I just can’t believe this stuff; I’m almost literally open-mouthed when I read it. What is wrong with these people? How is it even possible to be this crass?

Change of subject: Wendy was lying next to me the other day when she did something she’s never done before: Farted, audibly. There was a funny little toot, like the horn on a Fisher Price clown car, and then? Mustard gas. Do any of you have those dogs that bark at their own farts? Because that would be hilarious.

This little dickens:

She who smelt it absolutely didn’t deal it.

How many people are upset about the violence in Berkeley last night? For the record, I disapprove. Violence is only the answer when it’s Richard Spencer taking a … nope, not even then. That was a sucker punch, and sucker punches are cowardly. Call him out, tell him to put his hands up, and then punch him. Not upsetting.

Wednesday night, though — that was a trap. Why is this so hard to see? This is exactly what the Young Americans for Wearing Rep Ties, or whatever their name is, did in Grosse Pointe, when they invited sparking intellectual Rick Santorum to come speak at one of the high schools, and insisted it be during school hours. The administration waffled, and then it became whassamatter, don’t you believe in free speech? and Game Over for the grownups.

Milo what’s-his-name doesn’t have anything to say. He’s a troll. He styles himself as a “dangerous faggot,” goes onstage and calls Trump “daddy,” all that lame shit, and that’s his act. If you’re willing to go onstage and say women, boy they stink at math and I bet their pussies stink, too, then you’re going to get attention. But sensible people shouldn’t allow themselves to be baited so easily. When I woke up this morning, all the liberals were tweeting about the presidential insults to Mexico and Australia — I’m still stunned to write that — and the conservatives were acting like the Berkeley demonstration was the sack of Rome, and not a few scuffles and vandalism in a city most of them wouldn’t visit at gunpoint.

So yeah, I agree with this: Don’t give him what he wants.

God, this shit is exhausting. It’s all Tom & Lorenzo for the rest of the evening. Have a great weekend, all, and let’s hope the world doesn’t end before Monday.

Every time I try to settle my mind, to think about something other than That Thing, to write about something other than That Thing, then – you know how this sentence ends. That Thing happens.

Jerry Falwell Jr. leading a higher-ed task force — that thing was this morning’s thing.

Len Stevens, the university’s chief spokesman, told NBC News that Falwell would bring a focus on “overregulation and micromanagement of higher education” to the task force.

I expect this means Trump University will rise again. Among other “colleges.”

This was this afternoon’s thing. The Black History Month remarks:

Last month, we celebrated the life of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whose incredible example is unique in American history. You read all about Dr. Martin Luther King a week ago when somebody said I took the statue out of my office. It turned out that that was fake news. Fake news. The statue is cherished, it’s one of the favorite things in the—and we have some good ones. We have Lincoln, and we have Jefferson, and we have Dr. Martin Luther King. But they said the statue, the bust of Martin Luther King, was taken out of the office. And it was never even touched. So I think it was a disgrace, but that’s the way the press is. Very unfortunate.

I am very proud now that we have a museum on the National Mall where people can learn about Reverend King, so many other things. Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and millions more black Americans who made America what it is today. Big impact.

And then there was this evening’s thing. Which may be the worst thing of all:

It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.

Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

Every night I wake up and wonder what the new day’s things will be. I’m not sleeping well.

So you can maybe see why the one bright spot of the day was realizing my new phone software update finally contains a shaka emoji. And then I learn it happened more than a month ago.

I think I need therapy. The whole world needs therapy.

Guys, I’m back, but we got back late and, of course, there was too much to do late last night and this morning to put a proper post together. So just a few quickies so we can start a new comment thread, as the last one is getting unwieldy.

1) Canada is paying attention to us. My highly unscientific eavesdropping/taxi drivers poll, which has a +/- Everything margin of error, reveals that no one sees our position as enviable, moral or even smart. So there’s that.

2) Toronto is on a Great Lake, like Chicago, and is windy, like Chicago. Fortunately there are coffee houses and cocktail bars about every seven or eight doors, for warming purposes.

3) I watched the news from home obsessively. And this, while far-fetched, is disturbing.

Very full plate today. Best start eating.

…you’ll be reading this. Because friends, I have to disconnect for a couple of days. I’ve been trying to finish three novels since Christmas, and can’t, because I keep checking Twitter like a rat in a Skinner box. I have to keep up with the latest news — IT’S MY JOB — but this is simply wearing me out.

So Alan and I are off to a sophisticated Ontario city before the border closes or we start a trade war with them. Like we apparently already have with Mexico.

Peeps, I can’t even. We may have to assume protective coloration up there. You’ll know we mastered our accents if we don’t come back. But plans are to be back on Sunday.

In the meantime, stay safe, stay sane and can anyone else rustle up another women’s march? I need something to calm my nerves. Maybe some Canadian whiskey will help.

Greetings, good people of NN.c land. Sorry I missed the update last night, but I was in a January kinda mood. Seriously, yesterday I told Alan he needed to start with the Vitamin D along with me, because like Johnny Cash, we haven’t seen the sunshine since I-don’t-know-when.

But I’m rested and I’m between phone calls, so here goes, quickly.

First up, a question for LA Mary: Is this the bridge near your neighborhood that we drove over?

There’s just something about it that rang a bell in my head.

And yeah, that’s from “La La Land,” which you may have heard got a few Oscar nominations Tuesday.

In December, I did a story on this guy, who has done that rare thing – figured out a way to make news on the internet pay. Admittedly, only a narrow slice of news (the Iraqi oil market), but still. His readers pay about $2,000 a year to subscribe, and if you’re in the oil bidness, I bet it’s worth every penny. Anyway, one of the things they do is a daily, or near-daily, update from Mosul, which is still partially held by ISIS. It’s so smartly organized, with incidents exhaustively detailed, categorized and sourced (anonymously, for obvious reasons). I wish I could link, but valuable information isn’t something you just give away.

Anyway, I thought of this because apparently POTUS is talking about “taking the oil” again, and even as a casual reader of Iraq Oil Report, I can’t even.

Here’s a roundup of the remarkable leaks coming out of the Oval on, what? Day five? Man, we have a long road ahead.

Related, and nifty: Red feed, blue feed, or what Facebook looks like, depending on how your friend network shapes up. Illuminating. I wish Bridge had the budget to do stuff like this. Instead, we have to rely on good old legwork. Here’s our red/blue project, Divided Michigan, which kicked off this week. Feedback welcome.

Phone just rang. Back to work and see you tomorrow, I hope.

Well, this is what you call a weekend. I’m sitting here bathing in the news firehose, and I think I need to just do the shotgun thing, just write stuff down, whaddayacallit? Stream-of-consciousness, yeah. See what pops up.

My autocorrect keeps changing “Melania” to “Melanie,” so I think the first lady needs a new name. I choose Natasha.

Sean Spicer definitely needs a new suit. Although maybe badly fitting suits are a Thing now.

Is Barron Trump on the autism spectrum? I know speculation has been going around on that topic, and yeah — no one’s business and leave the kids alone. I’m only curious, as it would explain much, including why Andrew Wakefield attended the inaugural celebrations and the new president supposedly plans to put a vaccine questioner on a committee investigating them.

That march. Whew. I had no idea so many people I knew were going, and now I feel like I should have at least come down to take some pictures. My favorite single march? Antarctica.

I’m not the first person to observe that when people who believe the government can’t do anything right rise to power, they put in charge people who can’t do anything right. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Still, a week doesn’t go by that I’m not astonished by how much regular people distrust their government. Two quick examples drawn from that bottomless pit of stupidity, my Facebook feed:

We’ve had some sewer line problems in an adjacent county, and a lot of rain, and some raw-sewage overflows into the lake have occurred. It happens, it’s not good, all freely acknowledged. Crews are working on it. On Facebook, a movement is rising: BOIL YOUR WATER. A person with an adequate understanding of how water systems work steps in to point out that the overflow is into the water source, “raw” water, and it is all treated at the plant before it goes out as potable. So you’re fine, this person said, which only prompted a torrent of how stupid do you think we are? Do you think they’d TELL us the water was unsafe to drink? Boil your water! As though water-plant management, with absolutely zero reason to lie because the problem wasn’t theirs in the first place or to fix, would just lie to nearly 3 million people who drink it. Because GOVERNMENT.

The next day, a person inexperienced with eggs reported getting a double yolk in one. “I threw it away, just to be safe,” she wrote. Smart! replied one of her network. You never know what the government is doing with these chickens! Of course a double yolk is a perfectly natural, if unusual occurrence in laying hens, but please: Blame the government.

Of course, water and food safety in the U.S. are two triumphs of government oversight, with one notable exception.

I could be amused by this stuff if the stakes weren’t so high.

A copied cake? What’s HAPPENING???!!?

Sherri posted this Rick Perlstein piece, low in yesterday’s comments. You should read.

And with that, I gotta scoot. Happy Monday, all.

We all know what day it is. The outgoing president has been generous with his time this week, with his presser, various other interviews and one I’m halfway through on Pod Save America, the podcast that succeeded Keepin’ it 1600.

You can read/listen/watch those, or you can join me in Tom & Lorenzo’s retrospective of FLOTUS’ style, which I’m enjoying. Daywear, parts one and two, plus separate posts on the gowns and the coats.

So many pretty clothes to look at. I’m so sad. I’m going to look at the pretty clothes and try not to think of the incoming administration’s extended family trying to cadge free haircuts.

Here we go, America. Try to have a good weekend.

One of those days, folks. Long and not terrible, but one that didn’t yield much material. Did a radio thing at 9 a.m. about the governor’s state of the state address. Fortunately, the other guest had taken very detailed notes, and can say that Flint didn’t come up until 34 minutes in. My notes read, “says ‘shoutout’ incessantly.” Which he did, enough that I looked up “shoutout” on Google Ngram. It’s hiphop slang, now over deployed by our nerd governor.

Then I came in to the office. Had soup for lunch. Had soup for dinner. Didn’t get enough done; my bullet journal will scold me tomorrow.

But I got some bloggage! It’s a bit infuriating.

Another one of those Vox things — I voted for Donald Trump, and I already regret it. Oy, these people:

Since that 60 Minutes interview when Trump went back on his promise to investigate Clinton, I haven’t been able to look at him the same way. Witnessing his open admittance that he made promises simply because they “played well” during the campaign was disturbing. He has shown himself to be guilty of all of the same things he accused Hillary of — lying to the public, refusing to do press conferences, putting himself and his business interests above the American people.

Since the election, Trump has repeatedly spat in the faces of those that cast their ballots for him. I did not cast my vote for his Cabinet members, many of them rich millionaires and billionaires, despite Trump’s lambasting of Hillary Clinton on her association with Wall Street. I did not cast my vote for his sons who sat next to him during his meeting with tech titans, potentially representing the vast business interests of the Trump company that they now run. I did not cast my vote for Ivanka, whose clothing brand was working out an ongoing deal with a Japanese clothing company when she sat in on a meeting with her father and the Japanese prime minister. I did not cast my vote to enrich the very swamp that Trump promised he would drain.

Today’s talker will be this NYT piece on Rick Perry, which made the blood drain from my face:

When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

Two-thirds of the agency’s annual $30 billion budget is devoted to maintaining, refurbishing and keeping safe the nation’s nuclear stockpile; thwarting nuclear proliferation; cleaning up and rebuilding an aging constellation of nuclear production facilities; and overseeing national laboratories that are considered the crown jewels of government science.

“If you asked him on that first day he said yes, he would have said, ‘I want to be an advocate for energy,’” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who advised Mr. Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked on the Trump transition’s Energy Department team in its early days. “If you asked him now, he’d say, ‘I’m serious about the challenges facing the nuclear complex.’ It’s been a learning curve.”

It’s fashionable these days to go around muttering “we’re so fucked,” and it’s easy to see why.

Finally, this Bridge story goes live at 6:20 a.m. Thursday, and I’m eager to hear what people think of it. It’s very strange, and there’s a twist at about the three-quarter mark that I’d rather not spoil until more people have a chance to read it. But I want to hear opinions.

Onward to the week’s downside. And…Friday.

I’ve been a scarce girl this week, haven’t I? Sorry about that, but it’s been a bit busy around here. Also, last night I was doing research for a story. More on that when it drops.

It so happens I wrote the last entry just a couple hours before the urine-soaked mattress hit the fan, so to speak. I’ve been wrestling with my thoughts on that issue ever since, and I think they come down like this: The link above, to a NYT story, is probably how I would have handled it if I were editing this thing. That is to say, talk about the bigger story, that there is such a dossier, and that it was circulating, and the basic facts of what it is said to contain, because otherwise it makes no sense to readers. You have to have a sense of the stakes. Would I have included the part about Natasha, Olga and the extra orders of Aquafina sent by room service to the Ritz Carlton presidential suite? Eh, probably not.

But I’m glad someone did, even though it’s a very risky move; after all, Peter Thiel could decide he is displeased and fund another lawsuit in a friendly jurisdiction. There is something distasteful about the idea that this dossier had been leaked all over D.C., was something everyone was talking about, and yet that information couldn’t be shared with the American public. Once it goes to Congress it’s Game Over as far as keeping a lid on anything. I respect the role of gatekeeper and I think the gate needs to be kept, but maybe not in this case. It is, as they say, extraordinary. These are extraordinary times. We are flying blind, without a map, and one engine is on fire. We are going to have to make a lot of stuff up as we go. That’s just the way it is.

Life is now a “Black Mirror” episode, isn’t it? And this is Season 1, Episode 1, only with Russian hookers.

One amusing detail I gleaned from this river of sludge: I think it was the Daily Beast that, in one of its subheads or other teasers to this story, said the president-elect hired “sex workers.” The dossier said “prostitutes.” You have to be fairly well-versed in sex-work vocabulary to know that “prostitute” is not their preferred description. “Sex worker” is. I laughed, anyway.

So, for bloggage? I don’t have much, but there’s this, a piece done mostly by my colleague Mike, with some help from me: County maps of where the ACA/Medicaid expansion has been most-used. Please to not guffaw when we note that these were places that went hard for Trump.

Tomorrow is the auto prom. I will wear a red dress and take some pix for ya. See you after the weekend.