President Donald Trump gave a press conference today, in which he uttered more than one blatant falsehood. The fact-checkers are, once again, going to have to pull an all-nighter just to keep up with them all. But while they're busy disproving the weightier of these lies, I thought I'd concentrate on just the easiest to debunk. Call me lazy if you will, but this one is just so laughably wrong that it would be downright hilarious if it weren't so obvious that Trump has such a deep-seated need to believe in it.

Donald Trump's victory in the Electoral College was one of the closest wins in American history. It was not "the biggest since Ronald Reagan" at all. It was one of the smallest, in fact, of all time. It was definitely not (as Trump has insisted many times) a "landslide" in any way, shape, or form. He squeaked by, and nothing he says (or believes) is going to change that fact.

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The relative speed differential between the Trump White House and the Republican Congress is already starting to cause problems, it seems. Because the Trump administration is moving so quickly and Congress historically moves at a pretty glacial pace, the unspoken bargain between congressional Republicans and President Trump is already showing cracks. The basic deal was going to be that GOP leaders in Congress would back Trump up on some of his (shall we say) more esoteric campaign promises, while Trump's end of the bargain would be to sign pretty much anything Republicans could manage to get past Congress, even if it contradicted some of what Trump promised his supporters (like gutting Medicare and Medicaid, to cite the most obvious candidate). GOP leaders would allow Trump to build his wall in exchange for Trump allowing them to shred the safety net and bestow generous tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. That was the plan, at any rate.

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It hasn't even been four weeks yet, and the first top aide to President Donald Trump has been forced to resign. This must be some kind of historical record, folks. The exit of Michael Flynn was no real surprise -- he's been relieved of high-level duties before, for what would be described on an elementary school report card as: "does not play well with others." But the speed of his departure and the fact that he was the first out the door was a bit surprising, since Flynn has been loyal to Trump for some time now, and Trump values such loyalty above all else.

To restate the obvious: Flynn is merely the first out the door -- there will doubtless be others following on the same walk of shame. This, in and of itself, isn't all that unusual. All presidents usually wind up having to fire top aides at times, sometimes forcing them to fall on their swords to protect the president and sometimes for screwing up so badly it simply can't be ignored or swept under the carpet. But the exit of Flynn before even one month had passed seems to signify that this sort of thing might become a lot more usual in the Trump administration. The pace Trump has set may mean that the scandals happen a lot faster and more often, but only time will tell if this will be the case (to be fair).

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While much of Washington is currently atwitter (and a-Twitter, of course) over the growing possibility that in the near future, one or more top White House advisors may be shown the door (centering, so far, around Mike Flynn, Sean Spicer, and Reince Priebus), I personally think Trump should consider cutting his losses in a different way. Palace intrigue is always fun to speculate about, of course, but aside from personalities, President Donald Trump should really consider just cutting his losses on the whole idea of a "temporary ban" on immigration. He should, in short, declare victory and move on.

For those of you laughing loudly at that previous sentence, allow me to explain. Yes, Trump has now lost twice in the courts. This means the chances he'll lose again -- no matter what next legal step he takes -- are quite high. He could appeal the decision to the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He could appeal the decision directly to the Supreme Court. He could continue fighting at the District Court level. All of these strategies are likely to fail, however. The full Ninth Circuit is not likely to overturn a decision that, so far, has been made by two Democratically-appointed judges and two Republican-appointed judges. That's not likely to happen, and would just waste time. Pushing it to the Supreme Court might get a 4-4 split decision, which would just uphold last week's decision against Trump. The District Court judge obviously thinks Trump is going to lose on the merits of the case (hence the initial temporary restraining order in the first place), so Trump's not likely to find judicial joy there, either.

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Donald Trump just got thumped by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. There's no denying it. Even Kellyanne Conway can't spin her way out of this one. Three judges unanimously wrote a 29-page opinion explaining why Trump needed to be thumped. This means he can't even whine that it was a "partisan" decision, since these judges were appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents. Even more satisfying is the fact that even if the temporary restraining order which blocked implementation of Trump's Muslim ban is appealed to the Supreme Court, a 4-4 tie vote would just reconfirm the thumping the Ninth Circuit just gave Trump. We certainly hope this turns out to be just the first in a long line of setbacks the court system deals out to Trump, on a regular and continuing basis.

Trump's response to this was an all-caps tantrum on Twitter that included: "SEE YOU IN COURT" -- showing he's a little unclear about the fact that he's already in court, and that the court just ruled against him. This led to an outpouring of amusing comebacks on Twitter, naturally, all of which are fun to read.

Speaking of Twitter mocking Trump, his followers in Portland, Maine were apparently dismayed about all the public protests against Trump, so they decided to stage a pro-Trump rally. Eight people showed up, leading to a classic Huffington Post headline: "World's Saddest Trump Rally Draws Just 8 Supporters." Again, Twitter had a field day with snarky comments such as "1.5 million attend Trump rally" attached to the sad photo showing the reality.

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Jeff Sessions is now America's attorney general, in charge of the Justice Department. This turn of events strikes fear in the hearts of many Americans, for numerous reasons, due to his own political history. On many of these issues we're all just going to have to wait and see whether Sessions turns out to be as bad as feared, but there is one big issue which could simply be taken away from his purview altogether, if Congress acts soon. Today, a Republican congressman from California introduced a bill to do just that.

Dana Rohrabacher just filed a bill that he's filed in previous sessions of Congress, but never has it been more important than now. The snappy title of the bill is the "Respect State Marijuana Laws Act," and in a few quick sentences would essentially place state laws on marijuana above federal laws, for states that have already reformed their legal approach towards marijuana.

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No, that's not a Donald Trump hair joke. It is nothing more than the end of a simile on lying. Rugs are the epitome of lying, since nothing lies more obviously than a rug. Of course, I could have gone with a different motif, but Al Franken had already used the title: "Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them," so I had to go with what was available, as it were.

The administration of Donald Trump has, so far, been breathtaking at its dishonesty. Some of this comes from the president himself, but a fair portion comes from his advisors, who are often put in the unenviable position of trying to prove something which is not actually true (so as not to contradict a Trump lie). They pretzel themselves into explaining what Trump really meant, and how in a certain light it bears a passing resemblance to something which is actually quasi-factual. Must be tough, but they all knew what they were signing up for, so it's hard to feel too sorry for them, really.

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I had fully intended to write another column postulating that our president and a few of his advisors are nothing short of blithering idiots (you know, the usual thing), but then I got hooked into the modern world of technology and instead sat through the entire hour-long oral arguments hearing in Washington v. Trump, which turned out to be fascinating. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals helpfully live-streamed the audio of a conference call where the lawyers from the Trump administration and the state of Washington made their case to a three-judge panel, on the merits of the temporary restraining order that a district judge in Washington issued that shut down President Trump's executive order banning people from seven countries from entering the United States. So any citizen could, in effect, sit in the courtroom and hear the cases made. I have to admit a certain level of wonky awe that this is the world we live in -- where such things are not just possible, but are now routine.

I am personally not a lawyer (nor do I play one on the internet), so this isn't going to be an expert legal analysis of the arguments made and the judges' reactions and questions. Just to let everyone know, up front. Instead I only have my own snap reactions to hearing the arguments made, in a few "judicial jottings" (cue: critics of my love of alliteration... heh).

The hearing was sort of a mirror image of the actual case at hand, due to the way these things are handled. The timeline started when President Trump signed the executive order. Then, chaos ensued. Washington state (and Minnesota) then quickly filed a case, and a federal judge issued a "temporary restraining order" -- an emergency injunction which halted all implementation of the entire executive order, everywhere. Temporary restraining orders are supposed to be, well, temporary (it's right there in the name). What is supposed to follow is a hearing by the original judge on whether he should issue an injunction that is a lot less temporary. Then the original case is supposed to go to trial, be ruled upon, and then (if necessary) appealed to the appellate court level before (possibly) ultimately winding up before the Supreme Court.

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President Donald Trump will doubtlessly continue to add more new phrases to the American political lexicon throughout his term in office. This weekend -- in an interview on Fox aired as part of the Super Bowl extravaganza, no less -- Trump made a downright astonishing statement, comparing America to Putin's Russia. This was not an example of moral equivalence, instead it has to be properly called making the case for immoral equivalence.

Bill O'Reilly asked Trump about Vladimir Putin, and Trump was in the midst of giving a stock answer about how it'd be great if America got along with Russia, when O'Reilly interrupted to protest: "But he's a killer. Putin's a killer." Trump's response was jaw-dropping: "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?"

Now, just imagine for one tiny second what Republicans would be saying right now if President Barack Obama had ever said anything remotely like that. Or President Hillary Clinton, for that matter. Conservative heads would currently be exploding, to put it mildly. The denunciations would be loud and feverish. "Obama hates America" would be just one of the indignant responses from outraged conservatives. So, one wonders, where is the outrage now?

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Before we launch in to this week's screed, we're going to shamelessly begin with a plug. Yesterday, we published a first-person account of what it was like to protest during Donald Trump's Inauguration weekend. There are some excellent photos of the demonstrations and an inspiring narrative by University of Maryland student Teresa Johnson. We urge everyone to check it out!

Moving right along, we're going to ignore (for a moment) all the shiny distractions that have vomited forth from the White House this week, and instead attempt to draw attention to an aspect of Donald Trump's Muslim ban that few in the media seem to be noticing. [We should add an editorial aside here: Yes, our editorial policy from now on will be to use Donald Trump's own language in the term "Muslim ban." Sean Spicer can insist until he's blue in the face that it's not a Muslim ban, but Trump promised to ban Muslims on the campaign trail, so who are we to argue with the term? Also, to do so would be to succumb to political correctness, something Trump loathes. So the Muslim ban will forever (in these pages) be the Muslim ban.]

But we digress. Donald Trump's Muslim ban, signed into existence as we were writing last week's column, was certainly the biggest story of the week. Spontaneous protests sprang up at international airports across the country as the chaotic implementation made it plain that this executive order just wasn't thought through all that much. Nobody knew what the order did cover and didn't cover, all the way from White House officials down to the border guards who were expected to somehow implement this vague and badly-defined policy. Clarifications had to be issued on a daily basis. The draft of the order simply did not go through any of the normal vetting channels, with some cabinet-level officials only seeing it hours before it was signed. The Trump administration is now starting to resemble (take your pick) either the gang who couldn't shoot straight or the Keystone Kops.

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