Another bad news:

The Trump administration has instructed officials at the Environmental Protection Agency to freeze its grants and contracts, a move that could affect everything from state-led climate research to localized efforts to improve air and water quality to environmental justice projects aimed at helping poor communities.

An email went out to employees in the agency’s Office of Acquisition Management within hours of President Trump’s swearing-in on Friday.

“New EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately,” read the email, which was shared with The Washington Post. “Until we receive further clarification, which we hope to have soon, please construe this to include task orders and work assignments.”

In other words all EPA-funded research is stopped.

Myron Ebell, who oversaw the EPA transition for the new administration, told ProPublica on Monday that the freezing of grants and contracts was not unprecedented.

“They’re trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don’t want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first,” said Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-backed group that has long sought to slash the authority of the EPA.

Of course it has. The name of the “institute” says it all – “competitive enterprise” is the enemy of any kind of program or policy or activity that would interfere with “the free market.”

But not in recent history has such a blanket freeze taken place, and one employee told ProPublica he did not recall anything like it in nearly a decade with the agency.

The move is likely to increase anxieties inside an already tense agency. Ebell and other transition officials have made little secret about their goal of greatly reducing the EPA’s footprint and regulatory reach. Trump has repeatedly criticized the EPA for what he calls a string of onerous, expensive regulations that are hampering businesses. And his nominee to run the agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has repeatedly sued the EPA over the years, challenging its legal authority to regulate everything from mercury pollution to various wetlands and waterways to carbon emissions from power plants.

Because obviously we should just destroy everything so that people like Trump can make more and more and more and more money.

An item from a segment on NPR yesterday about Trump’s visit to the CIA.

STEVE INSKEEP: So how awkward is it that the new president has taken office – the new administration has come in – and there is still, so far as we know, an investigation of the president’s ties to Russia?

MARY LOUISE KELLY: It is awkward. And the latest twist is The Wall Street Journal reporting this morning that Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, is under a counter intelligence investigation because of suspected ties to Russia. The Senate Intelligence Committee is also investigating that very question.

So here – here is the question that another CIA veteran put to me after watching Trump’s speech this weekend. This is Steve Hall. He was CIA chief of Russia operations. And he asked, what happens when the CIA collects a stellar piece of intelligence that maybe puts Vladimir Putin in a bad light? Steve Hall said, what happens when the CIA briefs Trump, and he wants to know the source? And Hall’s quote directly to me was, how can you say, no, we don’t trust you with the sourcing of that information? That is a live question today at Langley.

Very live indeed, I should think.

Last night the Post confided in us about what’s going on in Donnie’s office. He’s not happy. He’s surprised and upset that some of us think he’s terrible.  He’s surprised and upset that a lot of us think he’s terrible.

When he came back to the White House on Saturday after a nice soothing prayer meeting, he turned on the tv only to see news about the protests and the scanty turnout for his sacred inauguration.

As his press secretary, Sean Spicer, was still unpacking boxes in his spacious new West Wing office, Trump grew increasingly and visibly enraged.

Really?! How astonishing. He always seemed like such a reasonable, even-keeled, good-natured guy, one who would naturally expect to see some people unhappy with his presidency, and would take it in his stride and focus on the important stuff.

Trump’s advisers suggested that he could push back in a simple tweet. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a Trump confidant and the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, offered to deliver a statement addressing the crowd size.

But Trump was adamant, aides said. Over the objections of his aides and advisers — who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency — the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.

Ok that’s interesting – it’s interesting to know they were urging him not to.

But it’s also slightly perplexing. They must know him and know what he’s like. If they think it’s a bad idea to explode in rage at the citizenry on the slightest provocation, then why are they working for him?

Spicer’s resulting statement — delivered in an extended shout and brimming with falsehoods — underscores the extent to which the turbulence and competing factions that were a hallmark of Trump’s campaign have been transported to the White House.

The broader power struggles within the Trump operation have touched everything from the new administration’s communications shop to the expansive role of the president’s son-in-law to the formation of Trump’s political organization. At the center, as always, is Trump himself, whose ascent to the White House seems to have only heightened his acute sensitivity to criticism.

That’s our only consolation, I think, at least for now. It’s the straw I’ve been clinging to for weeks – the fact that his election was going to mean he’ll be faced with more and harsher opposition and contempt than he’s ever had to deal with before. It’s a vindictive consolation, but it’s all we have.

By most standards, Spicer’s statement Saturday did not go well. He appeared tired and nervous in an ill-fitting gray pinstripe suit. He publicly gave faulty facts and figures — which he said were provided to him by the Presidential Inaugural Committee — that prompted a new round of media scrutiny.

Many critics thought Spicer went too far and compromised his integrity. But in Trump’s mind, Spicer’s attack on the news media was not forceful enough. The president was also bothered that the spokesman read, at times haltingly, from a printed statement.

The president himself, of course, can’t utter a coherent sentence unless it’s composed and written down by someone else.

Trump has been resentful, even furious, at what he views as the media’s failure to reflect the magnitude of his achievements, and he feels demoralized that the public’s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.

Good. Excellent. More of that. Maybe he’ll get so demoralized that he’ll leave. I know Pence is even worse on policy, but I want Trump gone.

Trump watched Sunday as Conway sparred with NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.” Some Trump allies were unsettled by her performance, but not the president, according to one official. He called Vice President Pence to rave about how she handled questions from Todd, whom Trump mocked on Twitter as “Sleepy Eyes,” and called Conway to offer his congratulations. Trump was perturbed that the media focused on two words from Conway’s interview: “alternative facts.”

So he’s still calling people names in public. Even as president.

Tiny Hands. Sleepy Brain. Alternative Hair.

Of course he did.

President Trump signed executive orders Tuesday clearing the way for the controversial Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines to move forward.

He also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, lamenting the existing “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.”

Yes indeed – we mustn’t take the time necessary to investigate the environmental impacts of what we do, even at this time when we know for sure that we’ve already made the world a much more difficult place for future generations. Hell no, we must barge ahead regardless, because we’re just that greedy and selfish.

The orders will have an immediate impact in North Dakota, where the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners wants to complete the final 1,100-foot piece of the 1,172-mile pipeline route that runs under Lake Oahe. The pipeline would carry oil from the booming shale oil reserves in North Dakota to refineries and pipeline networks in Illinois.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other Native American groups have been protesting the project, which they say would imperil their water supplies and disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites. The Army Corp of Engineers called a halt to the project in December to consider alternative routes.

The executive order from Trump on the Keystone XL pipeline threatens to undo a major decision by President Obama…

And that of course is all the reason President Shithead needs.

Well at least Trump is unhappy about how many people hate him. That’s something. It’s a start.

Sean Spicer explained that to the press today.

Toward the end, Spicer gave an impassioned defense of why Trump dwells so much on things like his inauguration crowd size, arguing that Trump is very frustrated by constant negative coverage and the media minimizing him. He basically said it amounted to a defense mechanism from the president. It was really rather interesting.

Good. Of course it would be better if Trump were ashamed or contrite, but frustration is better than nothing. All he has to do now is figure out that the “constant negative coverage” is because he, Trump, is such a shitty, evil, bullying, horrible human being. And then resign, and retire from all public life, and work on being not so loathsome.

It’s true: toward the end Spicer does get into that. It’s very silly stuff.

QUESTION: But — but in terms of the crowd size issue, why bring that up at the CIA? And why did you come out Saturday afternoon to talk about that? Did he tell you, Sean, I’m upset about this, I want you to come out and —

SPICER: No, I’m not going to get into conversations that I have with the president. But I will tell you that it’s not — it’s not just about a crowd size. It’s about this constant — you know, he’s not going to run. Then if he runs, he’s going to drop out. Then if he runs, he can’t win, there’s no way he can win Pennsylvania, there’s no way he can win Michigan.

SPICER: Then, if won, it’s oh, well he(ph) — there is this constant theme to undercut the enormous support that he has. And I think that it’s just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told it’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win.

QUESTION: And — and if I may —

SPICER: Hold on — because I — I think it’s important. He’s gone out there and defied the odds over and over and over again. And he keeps getting told what he can’t do by this narrative that’s out there. And he exceeds it every single time. And I think there’s an overall frustration when you — when you turn on the television over and over again and get told that there’s this narrative that you didn’t win. You weren’t going to run. You can’t pick up this state.

Ok there’s a misunderstanding here (or a pretended misunderstanding). It’s true that many in the news media underestimated the recklessness of the voters. But that of course isn’t what frustrates Trump – what Trump is agitated about is that he thinks the news media underestimated him. He thinks that because he thinks he’s hot shit. He isn’t. He’s a worthless empty-headed bully. Yes he won, because too many voters like a worthless empty-headed bully if they’ve seen him on tv enough. But the fact that he won (just barely, and not in terms of the popular vote) does not mean he’s hot shit.

He’s frustrated because we can see that he’s a worthless empty-headed bully. Well that’s his problem – he decided to run for the presidency, so he made it obvious to the world that he’s a worthless empty-headed bully. That’s not the fault of the news media, it’s the fault of Trump himself, for being a worthless empty-headed bully.

QUESTION: Isn’t it a fair criticism that you’ve got bigger fish to fry? Why worry about a couple of tweets about crowd size?

(CROSSTALK)

SPICER: Because it’s not — because that’s what I’m saying, you’re minimizing the point here, Jim. It’s not about one Tweet. It’s not about one picture. It’s about a constant theme. It’s about sitting here every time and being told no. “Well, we don’t think he can do that, he’ll never accomplish that, he can’t win that, it won’t be the biggest, it’s not gonna be that good. The crowds aren’t that big, he’s not that successful.”

The narrative — and the default narrative is always negative and it’s demoralizing. And I think that when you sit here and you realize the sacrifice the guy made, leaving a very, very successful business because he really cares about this country and he wants — despite your partisan differences, he cares about making this country better for everybody. He wants to make it safer for everybody. And so when you wake up everyday and that’s what you’re seeing over and over again and you’re not seeing stories about the Cabinet folks that he’s appointing or the success that he’s having trying to keep American jobs here. Yes, it is a little disappointing.

No. He does not. He does not care about making this country better for everybody. People who care about that do not talk to and about people the way he does. They don’t look at people the way he does. They don’t do the things he does. People like that don’t cheat workers and contractors, they don’t call people names on Twitter, they don’t grab women by the pussy and brag to other men about being able to grab women by the pussy.

No more sob stories please.

The Times notes the news media’s alarm at the Trump gang’s rabid hostility to the news media. Ahhh but the Times would, wouldn’t it, because the Times is part of the evil cabal. Right? Right?

For wary Washington journalists, it seemed only a matter of time before Donald J. Trump’s presidency would lead to a high-tension standoff between his administration and the news media.

But on Day 1?

It was startlingly prompt.

The news media world found itself in a state of shock on Sunday, a day after Mr. Trump declared himself in “a running war with the media” and the president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, used his first appearance on the White House podium to deliver a fiery jeremiad against the press.

Worse, many journalists said, were the falsehoods that sprang from the lips of both Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer on Saturday. Mr. Trump accused the news media of confecting a battle between himself and the intelligence services (in fact, he had previously compared the services to Nazi Germany in a Twitter post), and among other easily debunked assertions, Mr. Spicer falsely claimed that Mr. Trump’s inauguration was the most attended in history (photographs indicated it was not).

Maybe there were a million or so invisible people there. Photographs can’t photograph invisible people, can they, Smarty Boots.

The tensions flared anew on Sunday when Kellyanne Conway, one of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, said in a television interview that Mr. Spicer had merely presented “alternative facts” about the inauguration, prompting an astonished response from her questioner, Chuck Todd of NBC.

“Wait a minute — ‘alternative facts’?” Mr. Todd asked Ms. Conway on “Meet the Press.” “Look, alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.”

Well Donald Trump didn’t kindly take time out from his busy schedule to run the country just so that demons like Chuck Todd can be rude about Donald Trump’s alternative facts.

When Mr. Todd pressed her about why the administration had put Mr. Spicer behind the lectern for the first time to “utter a provable falsehood,” Ms. Conway responded with a sharp threat. “If we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, I think that we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here,” she said.

They all think he’s a dictator and they can impose his will on us. I hope they’re wrong.

In reporting on the day’s events, many news organizations also called out the falsehoods that Mr. Trump and Mr. Spicer offered on Saturday, using variations of “false,” “falsehoods” and“lies” in headlines and stories.

That’s unusual, but Trump might as well be daring them to call him a liar.

Good; it begins.

A team of prominent constitutional scholars, Supreme Court litigators and former White House ethics lawyers intends to file a lawsuit Monday morning alleging that President Trump is violating the Constitution by allowing his hotels and other business operations to accept payments from foreign governments.

The lawsuit is among a barrage of legal actions against the Trump administration that have been initiated or are being planned by major liberal advocacy organizations. Such suits are among the few outlets they have to challenge the administration now that Republicans are in control of the government.

In the new case, the lawyers argue that a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause amounts to a ban on payments from foreign powers like the ones to Mr. Trump’s companies. They cite fears by the framers of the Constitution that United States officials could be corrupted by gifts or payments.

I hope it’s not only liberal advocacy organizations. I hope conservatives too are opposed to corruption and flagrant conflicts of interest.

The suit, which will not seek any monetary damages, will ask a federal court in New York to order Mr. Trump to stop taking payments from foreign government entities. Such payments, it says, include those from patrons at Trump hotels and golf courses, as well as loans for his office buildings from certain banks controlled by foreign governments, and leases with tenants like the Abu Dhabi tourism office, a government enterprise.

You don’t want a president who has financial motivations that could easily displace the motivations that are supposed to operate – the public good and the national interest, basically.

But…the cheaters have a way to shut that whole thing down.

The lawsuit may run into trouble, other legal experts said, given that CREW, as the organization is known, must demonstrate that it would suffer direct and concrete injury to give it standing to sue.

That pisses me off, because we shouldn’t have to demonstrate that we personally will suffer “direct and concrete injury” in order to stop a president being grotesquely corrupt. That shouldn’t be how any of this works.

The Times reports that the Women’s March in DC yesterday was about three times the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration.

Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the National Mall and vicinity and estimated that there were about 160,000 people in those areas in the hour leading up to Mr. Trump’s speech Friday.

They estimated that at least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in Washington in the areas on and near the mall at about 2 p.m. Saturday.

Yesterday.