Huge day for now the 47th President of the United States (PUS47) Donald Trump.  Before leaving office,   outgoing President Joe Biden  thumbed his nose at Trump by pardoning a whole host of people: Liz Cheney and all the other members of the House Special Committee on the 6January2021 coup attempt, plus their staff and selected people who testified. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Anthony Fauci, who ran afoul of Trump's irrationality. There were a few others. Hunter Biden of course was already pardoned in December. You know how Trump likes to exaggerate reality, as for example his statement at his first Inauguration, where he said he had the the all-time-largest crowd?  Nope.  Trump drew 600,000 people.  President Barack Obama's first Inauguration had 1.8 million.  Well, this second time, his ceremony will be among the smallest ever, for it was done indoors in the Capitol Rotunda.   Veep JD Vance joked that he would...

Three days from now, January 20, will be a busy day: Donald Trump's inauguration  has been moved indoors , the Capitol rotunda, with viewers being sent to the Capital One Arena.  The last time this happened was in 1985 for Ronald Reagan, when the temperature reached 7F.  Not so bad this year at up to 19F, but the prominent factor was wind chill.  It is very uncomfortable in DC at this time of year. It was on  13January1982  when I was working for the U.S. Senate. This was a particularly cold period for the city, with temperatures dropping to below zero.  Chicago that day was -25F.  Citrus groves in Florida froze. It began snowing, all told, around 6 inches in a few hours.  A fire in the Metro train line made for a particularly traffic nightmare. When the snowfall seemed to be ending, the first plane to take off at National Airport ( later named Reagan International--he first got elected in 1981 ) when visibility was only a sixteenth of a mile...