If you want to achieve political power, you need to work your way up. But these days, it's not about climbing traditional political ladders. It's about being on The Apprentice. "In Brazil, a former host of the local show was recently elected mayor of Sao Paulo. In the U.K., one became the government's enterprise czar. In Finland, one is a member of parliament, and in Georgia, one was prime minister." Welcome to the new world order, where the path to power will take you through a fictional boardroom (after a brief detour to the hair and makeup department). From Bloomberg: Trump's Apprentice Factory Is Pumping Out Politicians Worldwide.

After an extremely contentious series of debates and public and private battles, the Senate was deadlocked on Trump's Ed Sec nominee Betsy DeVos. VP Mike Pence then cast the historic tie-breaking vote, confirming DeVos. The move could clear the way for the confirmation of several more cabinet picks this week.

+ NPR: How Betsy DeVos became Trump's least popular cabinet pick. (This is a slightly misleading headline. DeVos was Trump's least popular cabinet pick that the Dems had a chance of defeating.)

"You are thrown to the ground and they use different instruments for the beatings: electric cables with exposed copper wire ends... Also they have created what they call the ‘tank belt,' which is made out of tire that has been cut into strips... They make a very specific sound; it sounds like a small explosion. I was blindfolded the whole time, but I would try to see somehow. All you see is blood: your own blood, the blood of others." The Atlantic with the details of Amnesty's disturbing report on Assad's mass murder in a Syrian jail. "It is here that Syria's top officials have overseen the clandestine hangings of between 5,000 and 13,000 people, the report found. Later, their causes of death will be ruled by doctors as respiratory failure -- an effort by the Assad regime to create a phony paper trail to legitimize these thousands of executions and hide them from the world."

+ BBC: Thousands hanged at Saydnaya prison, Amnesty says.

"No one apparently gave him anything like a Miranda warning: Anything he says can and will be used against him in a court of law." As the travel ban heads to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Trump's own words could prove pivotal in the case against the ban.

+ Vox: The legal battle over Trump's immigration ban.

+ Me: Five Reasons to Ban the Ban.

+ Quick reality checks, first from Stat: How an Iraqi cardiologist won trust deep in Trump country. And from Scientific American: Immigrants Do Not Increase Crime.

+ "It was to turn Trump's baffling remarks into an opportunity to make a broader point in service to Trump's policies." The assertion that the media doesn't cover terror attacks is both absurd and dangerous. And the follow-up list (rushed out with a series of typos) was probably intended to get news outlets to publish a list of attacks in an effort to support the lie on which the travel ban is based.

+ "He simply does not have a strong national-security case to make against these people, which is why it is reasonable to wonder if he has some ulterior motive for taking such extreme steps against them." From The New Yorker: How President Trump could seize more power after a terrorist attack.

"In Britain and Poland less than half of under-25s voted in their country's most recent general election. Two-thirds of Swiss millennials stayed at home on election day in 2015, as did four-fifths of American ones in the congressional election in 2014. Although turnout has been declining across the rich world, it has fallen fastest among the young." From The Economist: Millennials across the rich world are failing to vote. Sometimes it's hard to see the forest through the ironic beard.

"Once the crack reaches all the way across the ice shelf, the break will create one of the largest icebergs ever recorded." From the NYT: A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months.

Bloomberg has an in-depth piece on the new face of American unemployment: "The problems that keep today's jobless stuck on the sidelines are different than those of past recoveries: a complex web of often interrelated issues from disability and drug use to criminal records. Behind the statistics are people with 20 million unique stories. Here are five."

"Shohei Otani is the greatest thing to happen to baseball in a century. Not only is he Japan's best pitcher -- featuring a high-90s fastball and three strong secondary offerings -- he's also one of the country's best hitters. Blessed with a towering frame and unteachable athleticism, Otani dominates on the mound and absolutely rakes at the plate. He's a staff ace who hits in the heart of the order on the days between his starts." Is this guy the next Babe Ruth?

+ Some people have complained that the last year has been particularly cruel when it comes to news stories. (Please don't blame the messenger.) But that same time period has been quite generous when it comes to amazing finishes and remarkable sporting events.

"More than being lampooned as a press secretary who makes up facts, it was Spicer's portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the president's eyes, according to sources close to him. And the unflattering send-up by a female comedian was not considered helpful for Spicer's longevity in the grueling, high-profile job in which he has struggled to strike the right balance between representing an administration that considers the media the "opposition party," and developing a functional relationship with the press." I'm choosing to believe this is an exaggeration or a joke taken out of context. (But I'm probably wrong.) From Politico: White House rattled by McCarthy's spoof of Spicer. If that bothered them, SNL should go with Meryl Streep as Trump, Rosie as Bannon, and Kanye West as Ben Carson. (Rosie already said she's game.)

+ Sean Spicer has sparked a national discussion on the merits and risks of swallowing a lot of gum.

"What will happen to the monk is that he will have to give up his monkhood right away and face trial as an ordinary person." A Buddhist monk was arrested in Myanmar with 4 million meth pills. Sounds like a decent storyline for Breaking Bad 2.

+ Never read the terms & conditions? An artist is trying to motivate you to do so by putting them into comic book form. (I should try that with the news...)

+ Citizen Barry went kitesurfing.

+ California and Trump seem to be gearing up for a long battle. My friends Eric Rewitzer and Annie Galvin have made some fantastic prints that celebrate California Rising. For those rooting for Trump, the bears in the prints can represent the grizzlies that Betsy DeVos used as an excuse for why we need guns in schools. Either way, the art is top notch.