Against Smoke and Rubber Bullets 🧊 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 🧊  

Weekend Election:  This weekend wasn’t just about the Grammys, Melania’s grifty movie, and the Epstein files, more significantly it also involved two special elections in Texas.  On Saturday, Democrats picked up a House seat while also winning a Texas state Senate seat. That a Democrat won the House election in a race that had been delayed by Texas Governor Abbott isn’t surprising since it involved a runoff between two Democrats for the seat previously held by Democrat Sylvestor Turner who died last March. What’s significant is that as a result of the election, the Republican’s already very slim majority in the House will shrink to 218 to 214 with four vacancies.  That means that at least for now, Speaker Johnson who says that he will swear in winner Christian Menefee this week, can afford to lose only one vote on anything, including the funding package up for a vote this week which needs to pass so that the parts of the government that closed over the weekend can be reopened.  It also means that the already difficult to negotiate and then pass Homeland Security package that was severed from the rest of the funding package by the Senate in response to Democratic uproar over the Minnesota murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti will be that much harder to pass.  The other special election in Texas has Republicans freaked out because the winner was a Democrat who won by a margin of 14 points in a district that Trump carried by 17 points in 2024.  Democrats have overperformed in most of the special elections held since Trump took office, but this outcome was unexpected and the Democratic overperformance was huge. Though Trump claimed over the weekend that he didn’t know much about the race, he did, he had endorsed the Republican candidate and had tweeted about the importance of the race. If this race’s outcome, where Republicans spent ten times as much as Democrats, is a harbinger of things to come in the midterms it could mean that the blue wave really happens; that the Republican’s Texas congressional redistricting will backfire; and that maybe, just maybe Democrats stand a chance of finally winning a Texas Senate seat, the one currently held by John Cornyn, not that either side yet knows who their candiate for that seat will be.  Cornyn is facing an uphill battle against several candidates including MAGA Attorney General Ken Paxton. On the Democratic side moderate State Representative James Talarico is competing against firebrand Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett. Republicans, most notably Trump, fear that what happened in Texas could happen elsewhere which goes far to explaining why Trump and Ice Barbie are sending intimidating immigration goons to swingy places like Ohio where former Democratic Senate Senator Sherrod Brown stands a chance of beating his Republican opponent JD Vance replacement Jon Husted; why Trump is threatening to invoke the insurrection act; and why Republicans are once again trying to pass vote squelching legislation in the House and Senate. In other Senate race news, over the weekend, Trump endorsed his one time critic, former New Hampshire Governor Sununu, who is running for the seat being vacated by Jeanne Shaheen who isn’t running for reelection and Democrats in Michigan are in the middle of a food fight over who gets to run for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Gary Peters.  Both those seats matter bigly because the Democrats “pie in the sky” chance of of winning back the Senate doesn’t just rely on picking off states like Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and even Texas, it also relies on holding on to New Hampshire, Michigan, and Georgia.

Epstein, Epstein, More:  So as you likely heard, a whole bunch of Epstein files were released on Friday. According to the highly unbelievable Deputy US Attorney Todd Blanche the dump represents all the remaining files though it probably doesn’t.  It’s unlikely that anyone will be prosecuted as a result of the dump but what was released and the shambolic way they were released is very telling. A whole bunch of people on all sides of the aisle, mostly rich men but also a current female Goldman Sachs lawyer who appears to have walked away with a gift of a Hermes bag for her Epstein affinity, continued to interact with Epstein even after his disgusting treatment of young girls had entered the public domain. That group includes Trump, who is mentioned a lot, including by a girl who claimed he’d raped her. The emails also include evidence that despite his claim that he was disgusted by Epstein, Commerce Secretary Lutnick communicated with him about visiting his island as did Elon Musk who appears to have been seeking an invite to a “wild party.” The list goes on and on because apparently lots of icky rich people thought that Eptstein wasn’t all that bad even though they knew he evil.  On the shambolic side, despite the requirement that victim’s names be redacted the accidental or maybe intentionally sloppy DOJ release included names and pictures of victims who hadn’t previously been indentified, even including a copy of one victim’s drivers license, and somehow or other a spreadsheet including references to Trump was posted than deleted and then reposted, maybe in its entirety, maybe not. Trump, is now threatening to sue the Epstein estate and journalist Michael Wolff, asserting that the files prove he did nothing wrong. They don’t prove he’s innocent though sadly there’s probably not enough in them for an indictment or to turn off much of his MAGA base because as he once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.  As to lawsuits, that’s what Trump does or threatens to do about everything.  Last week he announced plans to sue the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax info that took place during his first term.  To state the obvious, sitting presidents, or even former ones don’t typically sue the government especially over tax information that normal presidents release willingly.  Apparently, the $500 million that the WSJ reported he and his son’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture received from a UAE investment firm headed up by the UAE’s “Spy Sheik” that was not so coincidentally followed by the approval of the purchase by the UAE of advanced AI chips that prior administrations held up over concerns that the chips would fall into the hands of China wasn’t enough enrichment for him.  After all, the Trump kids have to eat, Melania’s stilettos are very expensive, and there’s Barrons tuition, assuming he’s still in college.  By the way, don’t be impressed by the reports that wife Melania’s movie brought in revenue this weekend. It did, but far more was spent marketing it and unlike most documentaries, it’s playing in theaters all over the world so of course some tickets were sold though not at my local theater.😊

Streets of Minneapolis: If you haven’t heard it yet, check out Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis protest song.  It’s on point which is why Trump spent part of his weekend rage posting about it and attacking Bruce (who attacks Bruce???).  As to Minneapolis, via Pro Publica we now know the names of the two immigration officials who shot Alex Pretti.  They both have years of experience rounding up “violent” criminals not protesters which is just one of the reasons they were totally unsuited to be dealing with protestors and rounding up non violent immigrants and their children on the streets of Minneapolis.  The good news is that the cute little five year old boy and his father who’d been seized and taken to an ICE “facility” in Texas were released and flown back to Minneapolis this weekend after a judge issued a scathing decision mandating their release. Among other things the judge suggeted that the INS squad read up on US history and familize themselfves with the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The bad news is that there are many other children, many citizens, being held in similar or worse ICE facilities.  As to the Constitution, Pam Bondi should read her copy too because arresting former CNN host Don Lemon for reporting on and accompanying some protestors into a church where the preacher was also an INS official doesn’t seem kosher. While it’s true that going into a  church during services is a violation of a law more commonly used to protect patients going into abortion clinics, this DOJ has waved charges against people violating that law when it comes to abortion clinics because of course they have.  Moreover, a number of US attorneys refused to seek charges against Lemon because they knew better.  Lemon is now out on his own recognizance and the case against him will probably go nowhere but it is very chilling and another harbinger of things to come because we still have three more years.  Trump announced last night that starting this summer he’s closing the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for two years to “renovate” it.  Apparently, destroying the Rose Garden and East Wing while trampling on our rights while destroying health care, urging on measles and polio, trashing the environment, etcetera, etcetera isn’t enough for him.

On a positive note, it’s supposed to make it to 32 degrees in NYC today. 😊    

Frozen in Time  🧊 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 🧊  

Déjà vu: Trump is still looking for the 11,000 votes that would have moved Georgia into his column in 2020.  On Wednesday, the FBI conducted a surprise raid at the Fulton County election office, leaving with 700 boxes filled with ballots, voter rolls, and other related documents.  The raid was orchestrated and overseen by Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard whose job is supposed to be the coordination of intelligence from the various security agencies included the CIA, DIA, and NSA rather than oversight of elections, but apparently according the WSJ Trump quietly expanded her responsibilities to include uncovering the election “fraud” that didn’t happen in 2020. Last year Gabbard, a known conspiracist who like Trump is enamored of Putin, accused Barack Obama of interfering in the 2020 election by ginning up what Trump calls the Russian hoax, so she is the perfect tool for Trump’s election obsession. Though we don’t know what evidence, real or questionable, was provided to obtain the search warrant that facilitated the raid, it’s possible that there’s an international angle, maybe something related to those Italian lasers or Venezuela’s very dead prior leader Hugo Chavez?  With all the attention focused on Minneapolis it would be easy to have forgotten that during his rambling Davos speech Trump said that people would soon be prosecuted for interfering in the 2020 elections. In hindsight it appears he was referring to Gabbard’s adventure. The Fulton County election results have been examined and recounted multiple times and no fraud or shenanigans have been found, the statute of limitations for 2020 related federal crimes is up, and Fulton County is likely to sue; however, by reopening the investigation, Trump seems to be laying the groundwork to have federal authorities take over Fulton County’s midterm elections. That matters because whoever is in control will make decisions about polling hours, locations, and early voting periods; placing limitations on any of those things would favor Republicans at the expense of Democrats.  Fulton County, Georgia’s most populous county, is a Democratic stronghold so limiting voter access there could seriously disadvantage Democratic candidates in statewide elections particularly Senator Jon Ossoff who is up for reelection this November in what had been seen as the Republican’s best chance for a pick-up. With polls turning against Trump and Republicans, Ossoff’s reelection prospects have been looking up. Wresting control of Fulton Country’s election from local officials could reverse that, putting Ossoff’s back into the danger zone. Democrats fear that Fulton County is just Trump’s starting point, he’s looking for excuses to federalize elections in other Democratic areas. While he probably can’t cancel the midterms, perverting their outcomes would work just as well for him, not us. 

Political 💩:  Trump’s Border Czar Tom “CAVA bag” Homan is now running immigration activities in Minneapolis.  He’s making a very public showing of being more rational and less brutal than his predecessor but that’s largely smoke and mirrors because he’s just as much a hardliner as Greg Bovino, the stormtrooper wannabee he replaced. The two immigration agents who murdered Alex Pretti have been put on desk duty, maybe even into witness protection, but have not been publicly identified. Maine Senator Susan Collins who holds one of those Republican seats that Republicans need to maintain in order to hold their Senate majority reported yesterday that the INS and Border goons who’ve appeared in her state will be leaving soon.  If true, that’s likely because as much as Trump hates her and occasionally throws her under the bus, he’s starting to understand that keeping her in place is likely the only way that Republicans hold on in Maine.  The government will probably stay open, or at least only close for one or two days until the House goes back in session, because last night the Senate reached agreement to separate Homeland Security from the funding package needed to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year.  The plan calls for Homeland to be funded on a stopgap basis for two weeks while reforms on how DHS operates are negotiated. Unfortunately, the Big Ugly Bill that was passed last year has already provided Homeland with scads of money, lots of it from what should have gone to health care, so while those reforms which won’t be easily hammered out are important, Homeland still has far too much money to spend on advanced weaponry, technology, and the hiring of former January Sixers. Worth noting, newly hired INS and Border Control agents are now getting only 47 days of training rather than the usual five months with 47 chosen because Trump is the 47^th president. 

Peeps: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is definitely not running for reelection, but Senator Amy Klobuchar is running for Governor.  She formally announced her run yesterday. It’s unusual for a Senator with as much seniority to leave the Senate but as Klobuchar put it yesterday, these are unusual times, especially in Minnesota. Klobuchar is 65 years old, if she stays on for at least one term, it’s fair to assume that her presidential aspirations will be behind her. This morning Trump announced former Federal Reserve Governor Keith Warsh as his choice to replace current Federal Reserve Chair James Powell whose term as Chair ends in May. Warsh, like Trump, is an advocate for further lowing interest rates something that the Powell led Board did not do this week, opting instead to keep rates constant. We don’t know if Warsh’s views are as extreme as those of Trump, who said that he’s not at all concerned that a dramatic lowering of rates will spur inflation because “he can always deal with that.” Apparently, for Trump dealing with inflation, like developing a health plan and achieving world peace is simple 😱😊. We also don’t know if Powell will stay on as a Governor.  We do know that the very unctuous, Trump toady Kevin Hassett who had been in the running can’t be happy though he will say that he’s ecstatic because he wants to keep his economic advisor position.  Ice Barbie Noem who now admits that her response to the Pretti murder may have been wrong, not the shooting just her response, appears to be holding on for now too, but yesterday she wasn’t allowed to speak at Trump’s televised Cabinet meeting. And while out selling her documentary/payoff Melania said that her husband is all in on unity though it’s not clear that she knows what that word means. 🤷‍♀️     

 Fog: Keep an eye on Iran. Our fleet has been repositioned into the region, and Saudi Arabian and Israeli officials have been in Washington meeting with the administration for talks on what to do about Iran where lots of dissidents have been killed but regime change won’t be easy and probably won’t be achieved simply by launching missiles.  And because one international adventure isn’t enough for the Nobel Peace Prize seeking Trump, he is also ramping up threats on countries who sell oil to Cuba. Typically, when things get tough in Cuba, more Cubans seek our shores, but Trump has also been deporting lots of Cubans, the suffering won’t be pretty.    

 

Rearranging Deck Chairs 🧊 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 🧊  

ICE 🧊 and Mirrors:  Don’t be fooled.  Trump’s concern about the executions of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis is all about optics, polling, and the midterms. Despite achieving his promise to shut down the southern border, a recent Reuters/IPSOS poll has his overall approval at 38% with 59% believing that his ICE tactics have gone too far.  Trump hasn’t ended or even ratcheted down the Homeland Security invasion of Minneapolis, rather he’s trying to deescalate, as in change the tone of the press coverage that he doesn’t like.  Rounding up anyone and anyone who, based chiefly on color or language rather than criminality, appears to be an undesirable foreigner remains his priority, he’s just rearranged his deck chairs.  Gregory Bovino, who as US Border Patrol Commander at large, had been running the ill-fated Minneapolis adventure in ugliness,  has been sent back to his previous post in California. He hasn’t been fired and an administration mouthpiece denies The Atlantic’s report that he will soon “retire.” Bovino has been replaced by Border Czar Tom Homan. Homan, who is best known these days for the $50,000 of payola he allegedly stashed in a CAVA bag.  Homan, who is more presentable than Bovino mostly because Bovino gives off icky Nazi/Miller vibes, has 30 years of experience serving in various border control roles. During the Obama administration his plan to separate children from their parents as a deterrent was rejected as a step too far.  That plan was subsequently embraced by the Trump team until all those pictures of kids in cages went viral.  Despite calls from a crowd, that now includes several Republican Senators including Tillis and Murkowski, for her to step down, Ice Barbie Kristi Noem and her illegitimate puppet master, Corey Lewandowski are still in place as is Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s do whatever it takes, even if that involves deporting citizens and kids, as long as you make your daily quota strategy. Everyone’s blaming Bovino, a convenient scapegoat because he really did engage in violent overreach and brag about doing so on his social media account which has now been temporarily frozen by his overlords.  Noem is also blaming Miller for crafting the talking points that she says he told to say in the aftermath of the Pretti shooting. According to Axios, those lies included calling VA nurse Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who "tried to assassinate” federal law enforcement which came on top of Bovino’s remarks that Pretti, who apparently was shot by two rather than just one of Bovino’s thugs, was out to do maximum damage. For his part Miller is blaming Bovino’s CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) for providing him with misinformation about the shooting.  While heading out to Iowa for another one of his “the economy is great even though its not” speeches, Trump who had temporarily backed off calling out Pretti, once again badmouthed him harping on the fact that he was carrying a gun though he’s softened on Good because her father voted for him. All of this would be funny to watch, including Trump pissing off all his Second Amendment supporters and pleading with people to go to see Melania’s documentary, were it not that two people are dead, many others including children have had and will likely continue to have their lives uprooted, and Trump is only one year into a four-year term.               

Temperatures Rising (Metaphorically only):  Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Chris Madel, a Minneapolis attorney who provided legal support to the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, ended his campaign to be the state’s Republican candidate. He called the recent immigration enforcement operation in his state an "unmitigated disaster" while also criticizing the rounding up of people based on their color and said that he couldn’t look his daughters in the eyes if he continued running.  Senator Amy Klobuchar who has filed preliminary paperwork to be the Democratic candidate, has put her announcement on hold given current events, which makes me wonder if there is still a path for Governor Walz to run again given that he’s looking better every day compared to the Republicans trying to unseat him 🤷‍♀️.  A man threw an unknown but stinky liquid at Minneapolis Congresswoman Ilhan Omar during a townhall last night, he’s been apprehended as has the man who punched Florida’s Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost in the fact while calling for him to be deported at an event in Park City, Utah. Meantime, Trump who last night asserted that Omar must have orchestrated the assault, says the DOJ is investigating her over her increase in net worth, kind of the pot calling the kettle black. Omar attributes her new wealth to her newish husband’s business ventures.  The Biden administration had previously looked into her, but nothing came of that investigation.   Alexander Vindman, not to be confused with his twin brother Virginia Congressman Eugene Vindman, is running for the Florida Senate seat currently occupied by Ashley Moody who was appointed to replace Marco Rubio when he was appointed Secretary of State and lots of other things.   

More 💩:  We are once again barreling to a partial closedown.  Senate Democrats want funding for Homeland Security removed from the funding package that the House has already passed and say, or at the least, are threatening to hold up the whole package if it isn’t.  The off ramp, if there is one, could involve putting some restrictions on how Homeland Security operates however, Democrats don’t believe that those restrictions will accomplish anything given Trump thinks and acts like he is king. Any changes in the funding legislation would require House sign off but Speaker Mike Johnson, who appears to have entered witness protection to avoid commenting on the events in Minneapolis, and his crew are on recess and wouldn’t be available for a re-vote before the January 30 deadline. LI Democrat Tom Suozzi who voted for the package now says he regrets his vote and Laura Gillen, who also voted for it and who is also from swingy Long Island, has joined the majority of Democrats calling for Noem’s impeachment.  In other funding news, major cuts to FEMA were scheduled to go into place before last weekend’s storms but were temporarily put on hold because cutting emergency services going into a storm was a bad look even for ICE Barbie.  Notably, Noem has been sitting on funding relief due to a number of states, those owed the most include red states Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, so even without FEMA cuts, disaster areas are suffering.  Health and Human Services is also doing the now you see it, now you don’t dance.  Last week, after notifying thousands of organizations across the country that their substance use recovery and mental health grants were being terminated, the cuts were rescinded.  At least until after the midterms, because polls.

The body of Ran Gvili, the last remaining Israeli hostage is now back in Israel. May his memory be a blessing. 

 

 
Nero Vibes 😱 ✡️🌻😱 👿 🧊 🔫 

While Minnesota Burns:  On Saturday United States border patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. They shot him ten times, with most of those bullets hitting him after he was already incapacitated and bleeding out.  Video shows that Pretti’s “crime” was holding a cell phone while coming to the aid of another Minneapolis resident who had been forcibly shoved to the ground by the agents. Pretti was lawfully carrying a gun, however, despite assertions made by ICE Barbie Noem, pipsqueak strongman Greg Bovino, and Deputy US AG/Trump lawyer Todd Blanche, videos show that Pretti’s weapon had been taken from him by the agents before they shot him. The Trump goon squad is making as much as they can of that gun, alleging that it proves that Pretti was a domestic terrorist, incredibly ironic given the number of January six insurrectionists who were armed. I am not one for guns, but the Trump administration is all in on gun rights at least for Trump supporting Kyle Rittenhouse types, rather than liberal ICU nurses. The Trump team’s claims about Pretti are so insane that they’ve even managed to offend the NRA which at least is consistent in the belief that the Constitution allows all of us, even libs, to carry guns everywhere.  Last week, an FBI Supervising agent in the Minneapolis field office resigned once it became clear that the investigation into Renee Good’s shooting was focused on digging up dirt on Good and her family rather than on the officer who shot her so it should come as no surprise that the plans for the Pretti investigation are following a similar trajectory.  The DOJ says it intends to leave the investigation in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security. Noem investigating her own goons, what could possibly be wrong about that? A handful of Republicans legislators are speaking up, a little, including Senator Lisa Murkowski who frequently speaks out but rarely does much, retiring Senator Thom Tillis, and about to be forcibly retired Senator Bill Cassidy. If they really cared, they’d start caucusing with the Democrats to put an end to this 💩 show, but they won’t. On the House side Homeland Security Chair Andrew Garbarino says he will seek testimony from ICE and Border Patrol officials.  Republican Garbarino’s sudden concern most likely reflects his fear that his right leaning Long Island district could swing blue if the killings of innocent citizens continue. With another government shutdown looming on January 30, Senate Democrats are threatening to vote against any funding bill that includes DHS funding.  They should. ICE, or at minimum ICE in its current expanded form, needs to go as does Kristi Noem and her “interim” but really permanent chief of staff Corey Lewandowki who is reported to be pulling her strings. 

Trump Fiddles:  While Minneapolis was experiencing fire and ICE, Trump spent part of his weekend hosting a showing of current wife Melania’s grift (divorce settlement?), the Amazon funded documentary that is officially described as offering an “intimate, behind-the-scenes look at First Lady Melania Trump during the 20 days leading up to the 2025 Presidential Inauguration.”  The soon to be flop coming to theaters everywhere was directed by Brett Ratner who very fittingly for Trump-land has been accused of multiple cases of sexual “misconduct.”  The film represents Jeff Bezos’ $75 million bribe ($40 million plus $35 million for distribution and marketing) to get more rocket funding.  That $75 million could be coming from the Washington Post’s budget. Over the weekend the paper canceled plans to send reporters to the upcoming Milan Olympics and rumor is that the paper’s international coverage is about to experience a similar fate.  While Trump was fiddling, he had Kristi Noem send Minnesota Governor Walz an offer to withdraw ICE from Minnesota in exchange for the state turning over its voter roll and Medicaid data.  That’s part of Trump’s continuing effort to gain access to voter data in order to "take over elections in swing states." With his polls sinking and more and more independents, including those key swingy Hispanic voters, jumping the Trump ship, the orange, wannabee king is very fearful of what the midterms, or at least fairly held midterms could bring so using ICE raids and extrajudicial killings to get control of voter rolls, as farfetched as that once sounded, could be key to his survival.   

Other 💩:  As if going after Greenland wasn’t enough, going into the weekend Trump further offended our erstwhile NATO allies by asserting that they were a bunch of wimps who’d never done anything for the US.  Trump’s faux ankle spurs kept him out of the army during the Viet Nam war but those not so wimpy allies, including the Brits and the Danes, fought side by side with US soldiers in Afghanistan, in many cases suffering more losses as a percent of their population than the US did. His remarks led to such withering pushbacks that Trump kind of retracted his remark, but mostly only when it came to the Brits possibly because pressure is building for King Charles to cancel his planned April visit and we know how much Trump loves to hobnob and be photographed with royalty. Here at home, RFK Jr, a member of what was once considered our royal family, is moving forward with his plan to destroy our collective health, and I don’t mean just his recommendation that we gorge on meat and whole milk. Dr. Kirk Milhoan, the new head of the once respected Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), said a person’s right to refuse a vaccine outweighed concerns about illness or death from infectious diseases. To be clear, that means that your child getting polio would be okay with him if it meant that his or her schoolmate was allowed to opt out of getting a polio vaccine. The good news is that negative pressure iron lung machines have been replaced by positive pressure ventilators, the bad news is that being on a ventilator of any kind for life is still a 💩ty thing.

 

RIP Alex Pretti and Renee Good.  May their memories be a blessing.

 

Green Eggs and Spam 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤪 👿 

Greenland TACO: So, we’re not invading Greenland.  Trump backed off, claiming that he had achieved a monumental victory in the form of some awesome new concessions from NATO.  Putting aside that NATO doesn’t control either Denmark or Greenland, those claimed concessions return the US’s deal with Greenland, or Iceland as Trump called it four times in his rambling incoherent Davos speech, to where it was before he acted out. There are no details in writing, we’ll have to wait the usual two weeks 😊 for them, but it sounds like the deal should it ever be put down on paper will look just like the treaty that President Truman negotiated, the US: will have control over its bases; will get to reopen the closed ones it previously had: and will have a right of first refusal on the valuable minerals that are so embedded in Greenland’s ice that they can’t be economically extracted with today’s technology.  Trump’s Greenland posturing did achieve two notable things:  first, he pissed off our NATO allies most of whom rightfully no longer believe that we are a dependable ally and second, he managed to temporarily redirect attention away from more pressing domestic issues like affordability, health insurance, the violent and also evil actions of his immigration militia who’ve been separating five years olds from their parents while “accidentally” rounding up citizens while tossing pepper grenades, and that only 1% of the Epstein files have been released despite the passage of a law mandating that most of what’s in them immediately see light of day.  One more thing for the embarrassment file, Trump told Davo’s Swiss audience that if it wasn’t for the US, they’d be speaking German.  German is one of Switzerland’s official languages. That wasn’t ignoramus Trump’s first language gaffe, a while back he complimented Liberia’s president for his English skills. English is the official language of Liberia.   

Polls and Lawsuits:  Despite all of Trump’s efforts, polls indicate that the Greenland episode has done little to deflect attention away from his poor performance. He is very freaked out by yesterday’s NY Times Siena poll which indicated how much people have soured on the way he’s handling just about everything.  His response to the poll: expanding his defamation lawsuit against the NY Times to hold them “fully responsible for all their Radical left lies and wrongdoing!”  Trump is currently sporting a larger than usual dark bruise on his left hand which he said was the result of bumping into his desk. Query: does freaking out and punching the walls after seeing poll results count as an “accidental” bump or was that bruise caused by another transfusion of his monthly drug cocktail?  By the way, the litigious one isn’t just ramping up his NY Times lawsuit.  Yesterday he announced that he is initiating one against JP Morgan and its leader Jamie Dimon for debanking him in response to his urging on the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6. As to the insurrection and Trump’s other crimes including his squirreling away of secret documents at Mar a Lago, yesterday former Special Counsel Jack Smith finally got to testify in public.  He confirmed what those of us who aren’t delusional have long known, that Trump committed lots of crimes and was the driving force behind the insurrection. Smith also said that he expects to be pursued by Trump’s DOJ goons for doing his job. Sadly, though Smith coherently spoke truth, Trump’s base and most of the Republican members of Congress are still camp Trump and some of those January Sixers, they’re now INS agents.

Peace Board:  Trump’s Board of Peace looks a lot more like a piece of 💩 than a genuine effort to rebuild Gaza in a peace sustaining manner. It’s members, or at least many of the countries who’ve agreed to sign on so far, only 18 of the 60 who’ve been invited, includes a who’s who of anti-democracy autocrats and dictators.  Putin is all in, assuming he’s allowed to use some of his frozen assets to pay his $1 billion initiation fee, something that Trump appears amenable to allow.  Norway, Sweden, and France have declined their invitations, and Canada’s invitation has been withdrawn by Trump, punishment for Prime Minister Mark Carney impressively speaking truth to power.  It’s not clear where the $1 billion “lifetime” initiation fees are going, Trump’s Mar a Lago coffers perhaps?  Even more disturbing, Trump chairmanship’s is a lifetime appointment that will extend past the end of his presidential term, it provides him with the authority to veto decisions, approve agendas, invite and remove members, and to designate his successor.  This whole fiasco gives new meaning to grift as if Trump and his for-sale pardons, a list that keeps growing and now also includes a few repeat offenders, needs an expanded definition.

More 💩:  The House, including all Republicans and Democrats Maxwell Frost, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Summer Lee, Stephen Lynch, Ayanna Pressley, Emily Randall, Lateefah Simon, Melanie Stansbury and Rashida Tlaib, voted to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt for refusing to honor a subpoena to answer questions about Jeffrey Epstein. The Bill and Hillary imbroglio is an attempt to deflect from Trump whose Epstein opacity continues to be abetted by the DOJ’s sitting on the Epstein files.  Also, regardless of what you think about Bill Clinton, who Chief of Staff Wiles said spent less time with Epstein than Trump did, there’s no reason to go after Hillary unless of course the objective is to finally “lock her up.” Notably Republican Representatives Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy all refused subpoenas from the January 6^th Select Committee and haven’t suffered any penalties. Then there’s former Representative Matt Gaetz.  He has suffered a bit.  Though he hasn’t gone to jail he did leave the House in an effort to see the ethics report into his sex crimes squashed.  Alas for him, that report was released this week and it turns out that the one-time Trump nominee to serve as Attorney General did the things he was accused of doing, including having sex with a minor.  So far Gaetz remains an OANN host with one of those coveted Pentagon Pete press passes that were stripped from mainstream journalists. As to Pete, there are scurrilous, unconfirmed reports on Twitter that his wife has been caught in a compromising position with someone not named Pete.  Probably just gossipy spam given its source is Twitter whose Grok AI chatbot now permits users to “nudify” images, including those of women and minors. Musk has been getting some pushback from a few countries and is now limiting the “undress” privilege to paid subscribers.  Crickets from our administration because Musk is back to making contributions to Republican candidates and spreading kiddie porn is only a problem when committed by Democrats in pizza parlors.  

 

 

The Ugliest American 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤪 👿 

One Year In: Yesterday while speaking in the British Parliament, MP Ed Davey called Trump a corrupt international gangster and a bully.  Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Canada’s relationship with the US no longer works and that the US led world order is ruptured. Last night on his MSNOW show, Lawrence O’Donnell, the talented wordsmith who once wrote scripts for The West Wing, went with my favorite, calling Trump an “open sore of narcissism.” Those are just a selection of the things being said in public about Trump and his actions, no doubt what’s being said in private is far worse. These public remarks, especially the ones from international leaders, have been triggered by Trump’s increasingly loud threats to annex Greenland by whatever means he deems necessary.   O’Donnell is convinced that those threats are mostly about distracting from the Epstein files rather than Trump’s actual intentions.  If we’re lucky, O’Donnell is right but since Trump has bolstered his saber rattling with threats to impose increasingly onerous tariffs on many of our European allies, including a 200% one on French champagne, a lot of the damage has already been done.  Yesterday, as Trump took to the White House press room to brag about his 365 first year accomplishments, a list that was ridden with his usual lies and exaggerations, including one about how awesome his economy is, especially when compared to the one that he got from favorite punching bag, Biden, the DJIA dropped 870 points probably because Wall Street investors like champagne but intensely dislike tariffs and though many of them could care little about Greenland, assuming before last week they could actually find it on a map, they are anxious about disruptions in the world order, particularly when those disruptions impact Treasuries and corporate profits.  In summary, our president who the NY Times estimates has turned his office into a personal moneymaking machine, pocketing $1.4 billion since last January, is 👿 and 🤪 The WSJ Editorial Board, hardly made up of radical lefties, believes he is seeking to annex Greenland so he can add growing the size of the US to his epithet (Trump the Green Lunatic?) even if the cost is empowering the ambitions of Xi and Putin. And now, despite a delay caused by an Air Force One electrical issue he’s made it to Davos where he’s likely to say more offensive, threatening, and insane things to an international audience, some of whom will try to figure out how they can profit from his greed and insanity while pretending to respect him while the rest do their best not to vomit onto the seats in front of him.  It’s growing increasingly clear that the US cannot survive three more years of this. Neither can NATO.

Minnesota Madness:  Despite a US District Judge’s order blocking federal agents from detaining or using nonlethal force against peaceful protesters and Kristi Noem’s assertion that US citizens are not being rounded up by her thugs but if they are they deserve it, Stephen Miller and Trump’s personal militia is still going after citizens and peaceful protestors. This week, they dragged a barely dressed innocent Hmong man, a naturalized US citizen, from his home and drove him around for an hour before “realizing” that he’d done nothing wrong and then returning him to his home. Naturally, Noem’s team then claimed that they went after him because he was harboring sex offenders because they felt compelled to make up an excuse.  Recent reports are that Noem’s thugs have started “accidentally arresting” off duty Minneapolis policeman, their crime, being Black men of Somali descent. The Department of Justice has added Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, not so coincidentally the first Muslim Congressman, to the list of Minnesota politicians being investigated all while Jonathan Ross, the INS official who shot Renee Good four times remains in the clear.  Trump now says that Renee Good, who everyone in his orbit has attacked as a radical, may not have been all bad because someone told him that her father voted for him.  Note to the rest of us, be prepared to mention the name of a relative who voted for Trump, real or fictitious, if you’re ever pulled over by the immigration police because just asserting you are a US citizen is no longer enough.       

Beauty Queen Out:  Yesterday, a Trump appointed judge ruled that the “charade” of Lindsey Halligan “masquerading as the US Attorney” for the Eastern Virginia District was in “direct defiance of binding court orders and must come to an end.” The judge added that the written argument that the DOJ had provided in defense of her continuation in her US Attorney role had “contained a level of vitriol more appropriate for a cable news talk show”  falling “far beneath the level of advocacy expected from litigants in his court particularly from  the DOJ.  In anticipation of that ruling, the Judges in her district had already started advertising for her replacement.  Last night, AG Pam Bondi announced that Halligan had left the DOJ, or at least is gone for now because in Trump world Halligan types keep reappearing in other roles.  Does the new Board of Peace for Gaza need an ambassador?

More 💩:  It turns out that despite all those denials, some of the DOGE-niks who were embedded in the Social Security Administration did share our records with an outside entity, part of an effort to ferret out the vast number of nonexistent non citizen voters.  Remember when Trump said that he wanted to turn Gaza into a Trump themed resort, we still don’t know if the resort part is true, but he’s selling seats on his Board of Peace for Gaza for $1 billion a pop, although not everyone is expected to pay that amount and its not clear where that money will go.  Some of the countries that have signed on include Middle Eastern and bordering nations like Israel, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE.  Others include Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Belarus, Hungary and Canada who says it has no plans to ante up the Trump “initiation” fee.  Russia says they’ve been invited too, something that the Trump administration confirms, kind of odd since Trump claims that one of the reasons he needs to grab Greenland is to defend against Russian encroachment. A number of other countries, including Norway and Sweden say they’re holding off joining due to Trump’s Greenland mishegas.  It’s not really clear what the Board of Peace is really all about though its suggested that Trump is trying to usurp NATO and the UN’s usual roles and maybe he is or maybe he’s just pocketing the money, into the same account in Qatar where some of  Venezuela's oil revenues are being deposited?  Okay, I am just spitballing but who really knows?      

 

Keep Dreaming 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤡

Minnesota Madness: Over the weekend, Trump’s DOJ announced that it was investigating Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, alleging the two leaders who’ve been trying to calm Minneapolis have conspired to impede federal immigration agents. Notably the DOJ isn’t investigation Jonathan Ross, the INS agent who shot Renee Good four times rather than the three originally reported, though they are investigating her partner and it’s only a matter of time before they go after her dog . The investigation into Walz and Frey is ominous, not just because the two haven’t been engaging in an obstructive conspiracy, but because asserting that they are involved in a conspiracy is one way that Trump can justify invoking the Insurrection Act which, once invoked, will “allow” him to send military troops into Minneapolis.  We know he’s serous about sending in the troops because Pentagon Pete has ordered about 1500 active-duty troops currently stationed in Alaska to prepare for deployment to Minnesota. We should all consider Minnesota to be Trump’s dry run, that’s not hyperbole. He’s repeatedly said that he’s fearful of what will happen to him if Democrats regain control of the House during the midterms.  He will do anything he can to prevent that from happening and having Pentagon Pete’s forces posted at polling places will go far to achieving his goal. 

 

Greenland Gravitas:  Minnesota isn’t the only place where Trump may send troops.  He keeps ratcheting up his threats against Greenland.  Our European allies, or at least the countries that used to be our allies, are taking him seriously, so should we. Denmark, Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland all plan to send military personnel to Greenland this week. In retaliation, Trump announced that he will impose 10% tariffs on goods from those countries, an amount that will ratchet up to 25% on June 1 if an agreement to “purchase” Greenland isn’t reached by then. Those are the tariffs that we pay when we buy goods from those countries so he’s taxing us for his idiocy.  Naturally, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, one of his complicit hench man, took to Meet the Press on Sunday to defend Trump’s tariff threat as well as the strategic necessity of “annexing” Greenland. The Greenland issue is preposterous on many fronts and like the effort to invoke the Insurrection Act to send troops into Minnesota, is also devious.  Preposterous because at least until Trump started saber rattling, we had a good relationship and treaties with Denmark and Greenland. We don’t need to “own” Greenland to enhance our strategic position in the region or to get more access to their resources, all we have to do is ask.  We withdrew all but one of our bases from Greenland when it looked like we didn’t need them. If we want to put them back, we can easily work that out without annexing or seizing its land. Devious because Trump has long wanted to withdraw from NATO. In response to Trump’s 1.0 threats to withdraw the US from NATO, in 2023 Congress passed legislation that restricts a president from unilaterally pulling the US out of NATO. It’s not a stretch to believe that Trump is provoking NATO so that he can point at their “hostile” actions to justify circumventing that law. Putin is smiling.  Adding to the absurdity of the situation, yesterday Trump tied his ominous Greenland shenanigans to the failure of the Nobel Committee to award him their Peace Prize. In a letter to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, he said: “Considering your Country decided not to get me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”  That’s far beyond 25^th Amendment level insanity, not that his cabinet would ever take any action against him. Worth noting Norway doesn’t pick Nobel Prize winners, that privilege falls to the Nobel Foundation. Lastly, it’s not clear that any of Trump’s tariffs are legal, we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on that.

Viral Musings:  Despite Trump’s anti-Tylenol rant, a scientific review of 43 studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy concluded that there was no evidence that the painkiller increased the risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. So, despite Trump and RFK’s assertions otherwise, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, remains “the first-line treatment” for pain or fever in pregnancy.  In other health news, RFK Jr is funding a study in Africa that sounds a lot like the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis study, the one undertaken by the US public Health Service from 1932 to 1972 in which they studied syphilis by “observing” its progression in untreated African American men. The Health Service withheld penicillin treatment from the infected men even after the effective antibiotic became widely available. That study is widely recognized as a stain on the medical profession which makes it that much horrifying to report that authorized by RFK, $1.6 million of our tax dollars was being spent to study the already proven Hepatitis B in Guinea-Bissau. The study, which was just put on hold by local authorities pending a “redesign,” only because details regarding its unethical methodology became known, would have compared the health trajectory of babies deprived of what has already been determined to be a safe and effective vaccine with those receiving the shot.  RFK has been saying he wants to do similar studies of all the thoroughly vetted vaccines that we currently benefit from.  He didn’t explicitly say that he would do those studies on Black people in Africa but are we surprised?  After all, though we’re still celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday or at least some of us are, Trump and his friends constantly diss the Civil Rights Movement, characterizing it a movement against whites.   In other health new, measles cases are up especially in South Carolina.  While we can’t blame every measles case on RFK, his stance on vaccines is feeding the decline in the percentage of the vaccinated population and that decline will continue to grow. We have Louisiana Republican Senator/Doctor Bill Cassidy to thank for part of that decline.  He provided the crucial vote for RFK’s confirmation as Health Secretary even though he knew the consequences.  Cassidy was one of the few Republican Senators to vote for Trump’s second impeachment.  He’s up for reelection this year and naively thought, or prayed, that supporting RFK’s nomination would placate Trump.  The jokes on him (and us).  Yesterday Trump endorsed Republican Representative Julia Letlow, who is now expected to announce her intent to primary Cassidy in Louisiana, a state where Trump’s endorsement carries lots of weight. Cassidy still has the support of Republican leader John Thune, but Thune has far less sway than Trump so keep an eye on this race.  Cassidy could be following North Carolina’s Thom Tillis out the door.

Media 💩:  Last night CBS finally aired the 60 Minutes episode about the Venezuelans shipped to the El Salvador gulag and despite new Editor in Chief Bari Weiss’ insistence that she only held it up because it was missing an interview from a senior member of the administration, there was no interview largely because the administration just wanted to see the segment stalled, or better yet cancelled.  CBS is now owned by Paramount Skydance, which is owned by David Ellison, scion of Larry Ellison who is using some of his $240 billion net worth to back his acquisitions.  Paramount is trying to edge out Netflix, the current leading bidder for Warner Brothers.  The Ellisons really want Trump to weigh in on Paramount’s behalf, one of the reasons that CBS is working hard to turn CBS News into Fox News. Last week, after Press Secretary Lying Leavitt threatened that CBS “better” air Trump’s entire interview with their new evening host Tony Dokoupil without any editing “or else,” CBS did as ordered. Dokoupil who is likeable and was fine as a morning anchor but is in way over his head dealing with Bari Weiss, Paramount, and their Trump kowtowing, is being set up to take the fall for Weiss and he probably will. CBS’s evening news ratings, never impressive, are down.  It doesn’t help that during the unedited interview Trump told Dokoupil that he had him to thank for his job and pay package.  Trump’s poll numbers are way down too: his overall approval is around 39%;  86% of us oppose seizing Greenland; 55% say he has made the economy worse;  only 38% support his immigration crackdown; and 58% say his first year in office has been a failure. Frankly, what’s wrong with the people who think he’s doing a good job?

Fog:  Events in Iran seem stalled.  Yesterday’s Times of Israel daily podcast reported that despite the large number of deaths and arrests, Iran’s mullahs appear to have regained the upper hand for now.  The wild card is Trump who is either speaking truth when he says he’s not planning to attack or is pulling a fast one on everyone while he gets his ducks as in ships and planes in position.