I hate to start with the shiny distractions, but here’re some of today’s Trump tweets:

Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

(Polls show his Muslim Ban Executive Order is increasingly unpopular.)  Press Secretary Sean Spicer echoed Trump’s personal attack against judge Robart:

And it’s somewhat sad to see a judge go rogue like this.  It’s a shame that we’re not focused more on making sure that we are applauding the decision by the President to make a renewed focus on keeping this country safe.
— Sean Spicer

Another lie, unless Sean really believes the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – which had already refused to reinstate the ban – ‘went rogue’ as well.

Another round of Trump tweets:

I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

The failing @nytimes writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

The failing @nytimes was forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win. Now they are worse!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2017

I mean, after an introduction like that, you just have to look, right?  The New York Times wrote Trump and Staff Rethink Tactics after Stumbles, a shockingly intimate look at the transition through the eyes of anonymous ‘former staffers’.  Albeit not uniformly fawning, it makes the case that Steve Bannen has an outsize influence.

(That and Trump was probably annoyed at the recent Saturday Night Live skit portraying Bannen as a skeleton in a black robe slipping a clueless Trump disruptive and self-destructive suggestions.)

Still, not good enough. Press Secretary Sean Spicer said “This is literally the epitome of fake news.  Start at the top. I don’t think the President owns a bathrobe. He definitely doesn’t wear one.”

The White House staff stock the building with towels, supplies, and, yes, bathrobes.

Spicer went on at length about the rest of the story, abusing both the press and the word ‘literally’ at length.

Spicer was better about Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of him in a later SNL skit. He said Melissa McCarthy’s impression of him was funny, but that the actress could “could dial back” a bit.  (I thought it was hysterical, but it speaks well of Mr. Spicer that he didn’t overreact.)  Reportedly, Trump was most upset that Spicer was played by a woman.

Trump complained that many terrorist events didn’t receive the attention they should have.

It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that.

“They have their reasons” presumably means that news organizations are seditious traitors.  When pressed, the WH eventually supplied a list of 78 events that included hugely reported events: the San Bernardino shootings, the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the Paris shootings, a Tripoli bombing, the tourist killings in Tunisia, the downing of a Russian airliner, and other events.

There was no mention of the Quebec City shooting of several Muslim worshipers by a white supremacist.

Correction: The State Department said that the government’s court filing about the Muslim Ban overstated the number of visas they had revoked.  The 100,000+ number they testified to in court included diplomatic visas, which had not been revoked.  State submitted a revised court filing with the 60,000 estimate.

Minor Republican politicians have been touting the idea that the millions of protesters against Trump are really just paid agents. Their evidence has been thin.  Tennessee State Senator Paul Bailey said that, “Despite what the media may report, several of the protesters admitted that they had been paid to be at the TN Capitol.” When asked for his evidence, he said he couldn’t reveal the source “…Because of security reasons.”

You’d think Republicans would avoid something so laughable, but instead, they went with it.  In an interview today, the interviewer asked Sean Spicer if the millions of anti-Trump protesters were being paid:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, protesting has become a profession now. They have every right to do that, don’t get me wrong. But, I think that we need to call it what it is, it’s not these organic uprisings that we’ve seen through the last several decades. You know the Tea Party was a very organic movement. This has become a very paid Astroturf-type movement.

First big lie: the impossibility of doing this with millions of protestors.  Second lie: the Tea Party didn’t start organically.  You can argue it became real, but in the beginning, FreedomWorks, a group run by Dick Armey, funded it almost entirely.

The fiscal “Fiduciary Rule” may live on.  The White House dropped that line from last week’s Executive Order that killed it.

The Democrats are holding another talk-a-thon, holding the floor all night to complain about the DeVos nomination for the DOE.  Seems like a stunt to me, but I’m happy to see any activism.