STRAUBINICAL NEWS DIGEST Two.

STRAUBINICAL NEWS DIGEST Two.

  Some of you may recall, from the now-distant past, Donald Trump's early and adamant denunciation of rapists, if they are Mexican. It will be interesting to see whether this anti-rapist sentiment is to be extended to other races, such as Caucasian. Obama has been fairly aggressive in dealing with college sexual assault, and an article this morning in the Washington Post--

     (Incidentally, I've noticed that Post articles online will have links in the text to click on to read earlier articles. I'm thinking about providing an old school version of the link, like this-- "Go to a Starbucks or grocery store and pick up a paper")

  --suggests that Trump mightn't continue in the same vein. That is, he might, of course, but then again he mightn't.


  Elsewhere in the Post, we're told that Trump keeps blowing off intelligence briefings. I didn't know this until today, and it's not clear that Donald Trump knows it even now, but the President's Daily Brief has a quirky tradition of happening daily. And another kind of goofy little notion they've always had, no-one really remembers when it even started, is expecting the President Elect to stand still long enough to have this information read out loud to him. A golden opportunity, it would seem, for a person who didn't know about a thing, to have it explained to him each day by the very people who did know it, so that he might, in time, come to have a nodding acquaintance with that thing, which is America, the Roadshow Edition. You'd think that he would find it pretty fun, kind of like Mission Impossible! Foreign dictators dictating, potentates displaying their potentate-normative behaviors which involve broad gestures, strong language, and monobrows, an unfriendly-lookin' crowd amassing on the border of one state or another, and the like. Also, being addressed constantly as Mr. President Elect. But I guess he gets that everywhere, so why not just wave the guys away, like they're shoe shine boys on a 70s cop show.
  This information is heavily guarded, incidentally, to keep it out of the wrong hands, but they're actually TRYING to put it into Trump's hands and he's indicating he doesn't want it. On a conspiracy website I like to read with a grim expression, they are claiming that the only reason Trump went to the two briefings he did attend was that they told the President Elect his Big Mac was in there.

  If you'd like a regular dose of tiny updates about reasons we should be worried about the coming Trump administration, check out David Frum on Twitter. He's a conservative who I've generally disagreed with over the years, but he's rational and smart, and he makes no bones about his fear of what may lie ahead. Moreover, he's an excellent writer. A good guy to read to be informed, but also to gather evidence that distrusting Trump doesn't mean you're a raving leftist. (X-TREME CLARIFICATION: If you can't resist commenting about all the times Frum pissed you off in the past, please count to ten before posting a bunch of links. Remind yourself, in a calm voice, that you're missing the point. It's exactly his long years of being conservative, or as others unlike myself might say, being wrong, which make his current opinions vital.)

Please note: if you're currently panting like a New Yorker cartoon guy crawling across the desert due to my verbosity, then the longer item I'm posting today should be approached with caution. Walk around it at a safe distance while your girlfriend starts to sober up and talk in a panicky baby doll voice. This would make the experience of scrolling past my stuff more like a horror film.
  I'll say this, though. Today's long piece IS long, but it's also aerodynamically designed to minimize friction. It could be perfect for curling up with by the fire, after the coming Alt-Poultry Orgy.