Bully in the Pulpit

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” —The First Amendment to the Constitution

“The universal right to speak your mind and to protest against authority, to live in a society that’s open and free, that can criticize a President without retribution—(applause)—a country where you’re judged by the content of your character rather than what you look like, or how you worship, or what your last name is, or where your family came from—that’s what separates us from tyrants and terrorists.” That’s President Obama, speaking to troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Tuesday.

The National Park Service, acting on behalf of the Presidential Inauguration Committee, has filed a “massive omnibus blocking permit” for many of Washington’s most famous locations for days and weeks before and after the inauguration, according to Mara Verheyen-Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. This filing may have the effect of preventing protests like the planned January 21 Women’s March on Washington from gathering at the Lincoln Memorial or other traditional public spaces, as Amber Jamieson and Jessica Glenza report for The Guardian.

Wednesday night, after President-elect Donald Trump saw Indiana steelworkers union leader Chuck Jones criticizing him for exaggerating the number of jobs saved in his deal with Carrier, he tweeted two attacks on him. Jones, who seems to understand his job as representing the interests of his members a lot better than Trump, has since received many threatening calls, as Michael Shear reports for the New York Times. Trump’s willingness to single out individual Americans for criticism is getting some pushback, too. “When you attack a man for living an ordinary life in an ordinary job, it is bullying,” Nicolle Wallace, who was communications director for President George W. Bush and a top strategist to other Republicans, told the Times. “It is cyberbullying. This is a strategy to bully somebody who dissents. That’s what is dark and disturbing.”

A year ago, Trump tweeted his displeasure at a young woman who asked him some critical questions at a forum in New Hampshire, and as Jenna Johnson reports for the Washington Post, she is still dealing with threatening messages and harassment.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, said in an August radio interview that there were signs in Arabic along the U.S. board with Mexico guiding “radicalized Muslims” into America, Andrew Kaczynski reports for CNN.

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was initially supportive of Flynn, now says of him that some his tweets “border on being demented,” Kyle Feldscher reports for the Washington Examiner.

Don’t tune out, says The Washington Post’s media columnist Margaret Sullivan.

Political url-meister Matt Ortega, who served as Hillary Clinton’s digital director for communications through last June, has launched a new anti-Trump website called Corrupt.af, Blake Hounshell reports for Politico.

Senate Republicans like John McCain and Lindsay Graham want a full investigation of Russia’s efforts to influence the election, a rare break from Trump’s position on that issue, which is that it could have been “some guy in New Jersey,” Haroun Demirjian reports for the Washington Post.

Trump is requiring his transition team to sign non-disclosure agreements. Thinking ahead, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall explains why any effort by Trump to require members of his administration to sign NDAs would be dangerous. “The key point is that no president personally owns his presidency. The administration is not made up of personal employees. The information isn’t owned by him. I suspect that is a distinction he either doesn’t understand or doesn’t accept.”

Trump is going to continue to receive credit and payment as executive producer of Celebrity Apprentice while President, Cynthia Littleton reports for Variety. His fee will likely be in “the low five-figures, at minimum,” she reports. As Judd Legum notes, this relationship contradicts a statement cutting off business ties with Trump put out in June 2015 by NBC Universal, the parent company of MGM which produces Celebrity Apprentice, back when his attacks on Mexicans and immigrants were apparently still deemed bad for that business.

ResistHere.org has been launched as an open resource by the Working Families Party, with tools for actions and meetings.

CNN commentator Van Jones thinks he has found the middle ground that will allow an inclusive opposition to Trump’s divisiveness, and he calls it a Love Army. In a fascinating interview with Rolling Stone, he says, “Both political parties suck right now. The Democratic Party has become a hidey hole for all kinds of elite snobbery, and Democrats won’t confess to it and deal with it. The Republican Party has become a hidey hole for all kinds of bigots, and they won’t confess or deal with it. It doesn’t mean that every Democrat is a snob or every Republican is a bigot. What it means is that neither political party seems to respect all Americans.”

This is civic tech: Tech Congress has announced its 2017 Congressional Innovation Fellows. Chris Soghoian, the ACLU’s senior technologist, is stepping down from that post to be one of the four, and explains here what he’s hoping to learn about policy-making from the year ahead.

Your moment of zen: Tina Fey on the “real reason that Hillary lost.”