Inauguration Radio w/ Matt Welch, Kmele Foster, Gene Healy & Others on Sirius XM Insight from 9-12 AM ET

Obama's legacy, Trump's promise, and your very best Inaugural drinking strategies on Stand Up! With Pete Dominick

Reason

Rise and shine! The United States presidency is transferring from Barack Hussein Obama to Donald John Trump today sometime after 11:30 a.m. ET, and there are many things to say and ponder about this shift in American power. As fate would have it, I and my froggy voice will be yakking about Inauguration Day for THREE LONG HOURS, from 9-12, as guest host for the Stand UP! with Pete Dominick program on SiriusXM's Insight channel, which is 121 on your channel-finder thingie. Please call in any time at 1-877-974-7487, to talk about your drinking strategies for the day, where you are on the bummed/stoked/meh/Zen scale, and what your mind conjures up when people utter the phrase "peaceful transition of power."

I will, very thankfully, not be alone. In addition to Dominick's crack staff, the host himself will attempt to call in from time to time whilst gamboling on the National Mall. Other guests will include:

* That's right, New York magazine political writer Jonathan Chait, author of Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail, to talk about the exiting president. (For those itching for more explict Chait-combat, this link will prove more satisfactory.)

* Cato Institute Vice President Gene Healy, author of the recent Reason hit "Goodbye, Obama" and also the seminal 2008 book The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.

* Kmele Foster, Freethink Media honcho, main muscle behind The Fifth Column, leading if undeclared candidate for the 2020 Libertarian Party nomination, avowed opponent of "respectability politics," whatever that means.

* Bonnie Berkowitz, author of an entertainingly random Washington Post transition piece titled "The 5 craziest hours in the White House."

* Historian Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned.

Comments

[Jerryskids]

I'm assuming Trump will be live-tweeting the inauguration so that's the twitter stream I'll be paying attention to.

[UnCivilServant]

You should never make the mistake of paying attention to twitter.

[John]

It is such a cesspool of derp and ignorance. It is the end of civilization.

[John]

He is going to stop and take a selfie with the Chief Justice right before he takes the oath. It is going to be epic.

[John Titor]

"Just chillin' with Chiefie, #SCOTUS #MAGA #PresidentMe"

[John]

Reason is always telling us how important it is to appeal to Millennials

[Swiss Servator]

I'd probably laugh to death if he did that, and then his first action in office would be to issue Antonio Brown a pardon...

[John]

http://www.newsbusters.org/blo.....g-you-suck

Behold the inherent violence of the system. Someone had their sign thrown in the reflecting pond and some reporters were told they suck. The dark night of fascism has fallen on America.

[UnCivilServant]

I should get fitted for my jackboots.

[John]

Brown is the new black and goose stepping the new Macarena.

[UnCivilServant]

Now you've done it, you've gone and reminded me of the one Al Gore was funny intentionally. (During his campaign he tried to make light of his wooden nature by demonstrating his rendition of the Macarena - which involved him standing perfectly stock still while the music played.)

[John]

Al Gore is the picture of the idiot son. Had his father ran a business rather then been a Senator, Al would have been the boss's son everyone hated and who his father gave him an allowance in hopes he wouldn't want a job at the family business.

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/255037/

Has there ever been a more clear answer to the question, what is the picture of the year than this one?

[Swiss Servator]

One last F.U. on the way out the door...

http://www.washingtonexaminer......le/2612397

[UnCivilServant]

If the motion of congress and the incoming administration continues, last minute regs will get burned.

IF.

[straffinrun]

And that headline wasn't much a of euphemism!

[straffinrun]

I'm having a hell of a time finding celebrities to perform for me during Trump's inauguration. I may have to do it solo.

[Swiss Servator]

That isn't even that obscure a euphemism!

[John]

A friend of mine got dumped by her boyfriend last week. He told her he was "more into free range organic love". When she told me that my first thought was if that is not code for "I'm gay" nothing is.

[UnCivilServant]

I read that as him admitting to zoophilia.

[John]

And my friend is drop dead gorgeous and stacked like the Washington Monument. She looks like a bond villain and has this sexy Russian accent to go with it. Whatever that clown is into, it isn't women.

[straffinrun]

That wasn't the deep water port he was looking for, eh. Seeing hot chicks get dumped because they choose a gay guy puts a smile on my face.

[John]

It does me too. Washington is 24-7 of that. God doesn't love me enough to have let me still be single when I moved here. The entire town is filled with frustrated hot women who can only find douche bags and closet cases to date.

[John]

Question, how many pills will they have to give Hillary to prop her up and get her through this thing today without making a scene? I bet she is on her third double martini and fifth Zanex right now.

[UnCivilServant]

They just disconnect a few of the motive modules and she'll sit where the technicians put her.

[John]

It will be similar to that scene in 2010 where the computer scientist reactivates the HAL 9000. Hillary will be quietly saying "Hello Doctor, name, continue, yesterday, today, tomorrow" all day.

[SugarFree]

I imagine she has an auto-injector strapped to her bulk somewhere, like an insulin pump, just feeding her a steady supply of Valium, Lexapro and umbilical cord blood.

[John]

I really want to hear the tell all about election night. How bad must it have been for them to have sent Podesta down to speak to the faithful?

[Jerryskids]

At least one ray of hope I'm holding onto is that with Trump this sort of shit will get laughed off the stage.

Why are all the digital assistants female? Because it's the stereotypical role of women to be servile lapdogs eager to please? No, because if they were male, you'd be whining and complaining about the patriarchal assumption that only a man can be trusted to dispense knowledge. You're a troll. Look, everybody, it's a troll! Let's everybody point at the troll and laugh and watch it scurry off back under the bridge in embarrassment.

[John]

Because everyone loves a pretty girl. You would think the rather attractive young woman who wrote that article would realize that.

[UnCivilServant]

SJWs get really pissy when you throw their canard of "privelege is invisible to those who hold it" back at them.

[John]

Is there anyone more privileged than a well off, young pretty white women? As a man, how many times in your life has someone other than your parents bought you a drink or dinner or paid for you to go on vacation with them? Unless you are a gay man toy for rich old men, the answer is never or maybe a dinner once or twice. For a hot woman in her 20s? Whenever she wanted to accept it.

[The Fusionist]

My GPS gives me a woman's voice option and a man's voice option. I go for the woman. I guess they're enabling my sexism.

I suppose if I were a theological liberal I could marry the voice.

[John]

http://www.thegatewaypundit.co.....rotesters/

Violent retards have descended on Washington apparently.

[UnCivilServant]

Isn't there a permanant population of those there already?

[John]

There is a large native population of retards but they are the nonviolent kind.

[The Fusionist]

"The United States presidency is transferring from Barack Hussein Obama to Donald John Trump today sometime after 11:30 a.m. ET"

I think we can be a bit more precise than that:

"The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin." (Constitution, 20th Amendment, Section 1)

Of course, there's also this:

"Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'" (Constitution, Article II, Section 1)

So his term begins at noon even if he hasn't taken his oath/affirmation, but he won't be able to "enter on the execution of his office" until he takes his oath/affirmation.

And his term certainly won't begin *before* noon.