January 20

 Sunny but bitterly cold. It has "warmed" since this morning--from -1 to +10F. Too Cold to go out. Tomorrow it is supposed to only rise to about +2F (from a low of -7). We dropped our plans to shop tomorrow and will reschedule for either Wednesday or Thursday. I am trying to insist that Mom stay home but so far she is being stubborn.

We watched the inauguration but I turned off the coverage when Trump got to the rally that took the place of a parade. The headache is finally going away. I will read accounts of his executive orders later. He didn't really say anything new and much of what he proposes he can't really do with executive orders. He can't erase law (actual passed law) on his own and he can't cancel sections of the constitution on his own say so. Several items seem reminiscent of actions he took in Trump 1.0 and had courts call him on them. I think that the government is going to spend a lot of money for little or nothing. And the idea of moving Pentagon "assets" to the border will mean that the Pentagon budget will go up (above the nearly $1trillion it now gets) to replace those assets.

I noticed that Trump continues to lie. He said that the L.A. fires weren't fought--they were from the beginning. He commiserated with the Techbros at his ceremony who "lost" their homes to the fire--they didn't. I stopped counting.

Some of the MAGA congress critters are so terribly upset that Biden gave preemptive pardons to his family, Anthony Fauci, the members of the Jan 6 committee and their staff members, and the capitol police who testified at the hearings. Good. I have read some commentators who are aghast at the violation of norms but that is a train that has already left the station. Trump engaged in vindictive persecutions and prosecutions already. I don't see the purpose of leaving (potential) sacrificial offerings to a principle that has already become a dead letter.

Richard Haas posted this on his AT HOME AND AWAY substack. I agree with him that the inauguration rang hollow. And it was an incredibly graceless and petty. I remember the first inauguration and someone said there was only one thing worse than a sore loser and that is a sore winner. Trump has been that and worse. Trump and Vance were just given the flags "that were flown at full staff" during ceremony. Trump was so petty he complained that the order to fly the flags at half staff in memory of recently deceased President Jimmy Carter for a month took away from his celebration. That total toady Speaker of the House Mike Johnson ordered the flags at the capital raised for today.