SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:51 P.M. ET: 

NO DUMMY – FROM THE HILL:   Melania Trump has hired a law firm in her native Slovenia to warn people against profiting off her name or likeness.  Entrepreneurs have raced to offer products associated with the future first lady since her husband Donald Trump became president-elect earlier this month, Politico reported Wednesday.  Melania Trump’s main concern is with Sevnica, her hometown boasting a population of 4,900 people.  The town has erected a billboard with the former model’s likeness, and a cottage industry hawking Trump-themed products has sprung up.  Trump hired the local law firm Pirc Musar & partnerji to halt the use of her name and image without permission.  “This is indecent financial exploitation and infringement of personality rights,” Natasa Pirc Musar, the law firm’s director, told Politico.  Pirc Musar said her team has not filed any legal proceedings but is monitoring potential cases and relaying them back to Trump.  “First we wanted to warn the public and now we count on their prudence to stop the practice,” she said.  She may have a case if her name is being associated with commercial enterprises.  However, she should be careful not to attack expressions of local pride.

GOOD FOR HIM – FROM DAILY BEAST:   According to Radar Online, 75-year-old crooner Paul Anka will perform his most famous song, “My Way,” at Donald Trump’s inauguration, with the lyrics re-written for his long-time friend and incoming president. “Paul was asked by the members of the Trump inauguration committee and he was only too happy to do it for his longtime friend,” one insider told the tabloid outlet. The source indicated that Anka’s special version of the Frank Sinatra classic would be performed during the inaugural dance between Trump and his wife Melania Trump.  Great style, great idea.  Anka is too old and too iconic to be bothered by political correctness, unless Meryl Streep wants to denounce him. 

OH PLEASE – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., grilled CIA director Mike Pompeo on whether climate change was a leading national security threat during his Senate confirmation hearings Thursday.  "CIA Director Brennan, who has spent a 25-year career at the CIA as an analyst, a senior manager and station chief in the field, has that when 'CIA analysts look for deeper causes of rising instability in the world, one of the causes those CIA analysts see is the impact of climate change,'" Harris began. "Do you have any reason to doubt the assessment of those CIA analysts?"  Pompeo, a Republican congressman from Kansas, replied that he was unfamiliar with the material Harris was referencing but that the CIA would gather information on all threats to American security, including any that stem from climatic activity, and present them to policymakers.  Good answer by Mike, who graduated first in his class at West Point.  Harris, who has national ambitions, did poorly in her first outing as a U.S. senator, hitting the Democratic left's talking points and little else.  She just succeeded Barbara Boxer, so the bar for her isn't too high.

January 12,  2017