Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

The first month of the year is in the bag, as far as cycling is concerned. I rode 13 times in 31 days (I teach tomorrow), for a total of 445.9 miles. The weather today was gorgeous: sunny sky, light wind, and temperature from 65º to 75º degrees. I averaged 16.91 miles per hour for 34.3 miles. Why would anyone live anywhere other than Texas? I'm serious.

This, folks, is why scientists are no longer viewed as authoritative on climate change (or anything else). It's Keith's Law: authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship. Keep it up, scientists, and you'll have no credibility at all.

George Will, the shameless one, is still at it. In this column, he doubles down on stupid.

Here is an essay by a partisan political hack who masquerades as a disinterested social scientist. Donald Trump is only one week into his presidency, and this hack is convinced that Trump falls short of the high standard set by Andrew Jackson. What could possibly explain such partisanship? May I suggest virtue-signaling? The professor is signaling to his colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin that he is reliably progressive. "Don't think that because I study the past I am a conservative!"

Here.

Here.

Donald Trump lied when he claimed his inauguration crowd was the greatest ever. He lied when he said President Obama was not born in America. He lied when he said he didn’t believe Russia tried to interfere in the election.

He lied when he said he wouldn’t release his tax records because they were under audit.

In fact I believe very little that he says. This is upsetting, because it is important to believe the person who is going to articulate the reasons he is sending our children and grandchildren to die, possibly, in future wars.

The lies previously stated, however, at least do not appear to form the basis for policy decisions. However, that is not true for his recent outrageous lies about fraudulent voters.

They are intended to be the basis, not only for policy, but more seriously, for enacting new laws. I predicted he or the Republican Party would make claims of voter fraud as soon as I heard the results of the election, because I am sure that laws designed to discourage and even prevent voters who might have otherwise voted Democratic, in many states, were a factor in the Democratic Party’s losses.

The danger to our democratic system is far greater than I imagined after 9/11, and I am afraid the greatest threat is not from the outside but rather from within.

LEON BOTKIN, MIAMI

Note from KBJ: Either Leon Botkin doesn't know what a lie is, in which case he is a moron, or he is making unfounded accusations about our president, in which case he is immoral. For the record, a lie is (1) the utterance of (2) a proposition (3) that is known by the utterer at the time of utterance to be false and (4) that is made with the intent to deceive. Since lying is presumptively wrong, one should accuse another of lying only if one has good evidence for the truth of each of these four components. Botkin almost certainly has no evidence of the third and fourth of these in the case of President Trump. What a creep.

I haven't heard a peep from any of the following individuals since Donald Trump's inauguration on 20 January (and nary a word since his election on 8 November): George Will, William Kristol, Jonah Goldberg. These holier-than-thou pundits should hang their heads in shame for opposing the American people. First they predicted (and hoped) that Trump would lose the Republican nomination; then they predicted (and hoped) that he would lose the election to Hillary Clinton. Now, in all likelihood, they are predicting (and hoping) that his presidency will be a failure. They're dead to me. The 2016 election showed me as plainly as anything could just who is on my side and who is not. I have a long memory, and I don't take kindly to treason.

Here is a recapitulation of President Trump's week. How was your week?

What a wonderful thing to have a president who understands the threats we face and is willing to name the enemy. ISIS is going down!