1) Ivanka Dumped!: The week started with Kellyanne Conway offering some unsolicited shopping advice to poorly dressed women everywhere. While committing some — umm — minor ethical breaches, she issued a free advertisement for Ivanka Trump’s fashion line in response to Nordstrom’s announcement that they are leaving Ivanka for someone new.
2) Pink Was the Color of Protest: In San Francisco, 300 protesters showed up in front of the Planned Parenthood on Valencia Street on Saturday to join a nationwide pro-life vs. pro-choice debate. Recent GOP jaw-droppers — like the Oklahoma representative who called women “hosts” for babies — have really brought the “defund or defend?” question to the fore. No word yet on when that sweet Soros protest cash will come through.
3) A Romantic Retreat for Mr. President: Tsar Nicholas II had Alexander Palace, and Louis XVI had Versailles. Now Trump has Mar-a-Lago. The opulent estate earned the moniker the “Winter White House” this weekend when Trump took Japanese prime minister Shinzō Abe there to wine and dine him. Then North Korea’s Kim Jong-un sabotaged the date by launching a ballistic missile. Still, some of the country-club aristocrats were present to photograph the two leaders hobnobbing on the patio.
—Trump DOES NOT Love Immigrants: After learning that the courts do not, in fact, love him, Trump refocused some of his post-travel-ban angst on undocumented immigrants by kicking ICE deportations into high gear. To all those “socially liberal but economically conservative” Trump voters out there who thought Donald wouldn’t follow through, it’s happening. And the stakes of this Trump tantrum are just too high for the 600-plus immigrants arrested during his sweeps so far — including Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos, who was deported from her home in Phoenix, where she had lived for 21 years. That’s longer than Trump’s first two marriages combined.
—All Good Things Must Come to an End: On Monday night, Trump officially broke it off with national security advisor Michael Flynn after Flynn was just 24 days into the job. Flynn’s mistake? Supposedly, Flynn violated Trump’s trust in a conversation with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak. No one really knows for sure. I’ve had conversations on Tinder that lasted longer than Flynn’s appointment.
—Better Late Than Never?: Evacuations and damages resulting from the bursting of the Oroville Dam had to reach critical levels before California got a response from the White House…a week later. The dam began cracking and leaking on February 7, and Sean Spicer mentioned it on the 13th, calling it a “textbook example” of the country’s need for renewed infrastructure. Climate change and governor Jerry Brown’s (unanswered) appeal for assistance were never mentioned. Let’s hope that there’s not an earthquake in the next four years — we’d be on our own.
