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.       

 

Midterms Maybe 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤡

Political Jiu Jitsu:  In health care there is a phenomenon called Roemers Law; it refers to the correlation between the supply of surgeons in a city and the volume of unnecessary or questionable surgical procedures performed.  It turns out that a similar corollary applies to the deployment of troops into a city:  more troops lead to an increase in the number and volatility of demonstrations because instead of deterring protests, a militarized response “often escalates tensions and can lead to larger demonstrations and increased civil unrest.” Moreover, when those troops use force against non-resistant protesters, it can generate greater public support for the protest movement, a process referred to as "political jiu-jitsu" in nonviolence research. In a bigly nutshell, that is what is happening in Minneapolis. A normal leader would seek to deescalate the violence, the reason that yesterday Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued an appeal to Trump to “turn the temperature down” while also appealing to residents tamp down their actions. Unfortunately for Minnesota and for the rest of us, Trump doesn’t want to turn the temperature down. Instead, he’s looking for a rationale to invoke the Insurrection Act, the law that allows presidents to deploy active-duty military for domestic law enforcement.  He considered calling out the military during Trump 1.0 but was advised against it by his “minders.”  Yesterday, he again threatened to invoke the Act but now he has no “minders,” only Stephen Miller who is all in on getting the military on to the streets of the country and a compliant Supreme Court so we should be very worried. During an interview with Reuters, Trump also said that the US should not have midterm elections this year because he’s accomplished so much in office that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election in 2026.” When asked about those remarks, Press Secretary Karoline “Lying” Leavitt told reporters that he was “joking” and “speaking facetiously.” Leavitt can and does say whatever she wants; yesterday she called a reporter who spoke the truth about the shooting of Renee Good a “left wing hack” and “activist,” but that doesn’t mean we should believe her.  Trump, who also bemoaned that president’s party almost always loses House seats during midterm election, is dead serious, if there’s any way to cancel or disrupt the midterms he will and invoking the Insurrection Act and flooding the streets with combat troops would certainly go far to helping him do that. It’s fair to believe that the only thing Trump regrets about Minneapolis is that what’s happening there is happening now, rather than closer to November.  There will be more Minneapolis’s.

Fog:  Iran’s a mess, lots of people have been shot, many in the back and/or head, and many more have been arrested.  There are even reports of scheduled hangings of demonstrators which may or may not have been put on hold possibly because Trump, who ironically is okay with the shooting of Renee Good, said that those hangings would be his red line. Iran may be at a tipping point but then again, it’s been there before. Predicting what comes next is difficult.  On the one hand officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have warned Trump that attacking Iran would shake the global economy and destabilize an already volatile region. Trump has also been advised that attacking Iran wouldn’t guarantee a collapse of its regime. On the other hand, on Wednesday night the air space over Iran was mysteriously closed for hours before reopening; Lufthansa and its group airlines have temporarily cancelled overnight flights to and from Tel Aviv and Amman blaming increased regional tensions; the US State Department has raised its travel advisory for Israel to Level 4, the highest level warning US citizens not to travel to the country due to "armed conflict, terrorism and civil unrest;” and the US is in the process of moving the Navy's USS Abraham Lincoln to the Middle East.  While he continues to ponder what to do about Iran, assuming that he hasn’t already decided and is waiting for the military to be in position, Trump appears to be all in on Greenland.  Several tense looking Greenland and Danish officials visited Washington this week, looking worse after their meeting than they did before.  A number of NATO members, including Germany, Sweden, France, Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland are sending military personnel to Greenland this week to participate in joint exercises with Denmark which has warned that any attack by the US would end NATO. Nevertheless, Trump and his crowd continue to threaten forced “annexation” when all they need to do is negotiate for access. Lastly, there’s Venezuela where some of the oil revenues that we are now taking (extorting) are for some reason being ”sequestered in an account in Qatar.”  Yesterday, opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal.  In appreciation for her pathetic gesture, she received no promises from Trump but did get a White House swag bag containing a Make America Great Again mug, a gift bag with Trump's signature in gold print, and other promotional items. The Nobel Prize people issued a statement saying that while a physical medal can be given away or sold, the Nobel Prize itself cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred; the decision is final, and the winner's name stands forever in the record books. In more relatable words, even in Disneyland receiving a marathon medal from a friend, does not mean that you actually ran the 26.2 miles; your name won’t suddenly appear among the finishers.

More 💩:  Taking a page from the Department of Homeland Security which has been advertising for new INS employees using Nazi era and white supremacist imagery, the Department of Labor sent out a social media post this week that echoed a well-known Nazi slogan: “One Homeland. One People, One Heritage.” Those words frighteningly similar to "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”  which means "One People, One Nation, One Leader." First wife Ivana Trump wrote in her book that Trump kept a copy of Hitler’s speeches near his bed. Coincidence? Hardly.

 

 

Just Another Day Ending in Day 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤡

More Retribution: Trump and his INS goons are ramping up their attack on Minneapolis, not the response a normal president would take after the fatal shooting of a mother of three, but we are way past normal and being conciliatory is not in Trump’s playbook.  Yesterday, he threatened Minnesota with a “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION” accusing the state’s Democrats of weaponizing the ICE shooting of Renee Good, kind of the pot calling the kettle black.  To that end Ice Kristi has sent more of her masked grey shirts to Minneapolis. There are now around 2000 immigration agents in Minneapolis, a number that exceeds the size of the city’s police force which includes only 570 to 600 officers.  The immigration agents aren’t “just” going after undocumented migrants, they’re detaining US citizens, some for “getting” in their way, a broad term that includes going about normal daily activities, like driving to doctor’s appointments or shopping in Target. Judging by some of individual accounts and videos that have emerged, those citizen stops involve tackling and throwing people to the ground, entering homes without warrants, and bashing car windows.  Dry runs perhaps for what’s going to happen in swing areas and blue cities during the midterms? Most Somalis who live in Minneapolis are US citizens, nevertheless their very presence in the city and the involvement of members of their community in the state’s welfare fraud scandal is being used as the justification for the ongoing raids. That’s particularly ironic, not just because most of Minneapolis’ Somalis are in the US legally and are law abiding citizens but because as a result of the Department of Justice’s decision to attack the character of shooting victim Renee Good and her surviving wife rather than engage in a legitimate investigation of the shooting, six prosecutors from  Minnesota’s US Attorney’s office who had been running the investigation into welfare fraud resigned yesterday.  They joined a similar number of prosecutors from the DC based office of Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Dhillon who was appointed to her position leading the Civil Rights decision largely because she shares Trump’s view that Civil Rights only matter when applied to white men from his MAGA base, has decided that there’s no need for her office to investigate the Minneapolis shooting  even though investigating law enforcement shootings is one of the things that her office is supposed to do. It’s not just Minneapolis and Minnesota that are in Trump’s crosshairs.  Yesterday while making a speech to the Detroit Economic Club where he danced to Macho Man and spouted his usual lies about how great the economy is while once again calling affordability a Democratic hoax, Trump announced that starting February 1 he will deny federal funding to any states that are home to local governments resisting his immigration policies, that’s an expansion of his previous threat to cut off funding to so-called sanctuary cities. The threatened states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The lawsuits write themselves.  To date most of Trump’s efforts to  retaliate against blue states by cutting funding for essential services, things like child care, have been stymied by the courts, but having to rely on judges is no guarantee that rational policy will prevail given that an analysis by the NY Times shows that 93% of the time Appellate Court judges appointed by Trump during his first term rule in his favor.  To that end we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on tariffs and birth right citizenship.  One more thing worth noting, despite the law mandating the release of the Epstein files, the DOJ appears to have stopped releasing files maybe at the direction of Trump who yesterday said fxck you accompanied by a middle finger salute to an autoworker who called him a pedophile protector. 

Powell Powers On: Yesterday in an editorial titled Lawsuits for Dummies, the Wall Street Journal called out the DOJ’s criminal subpoena to Fed Chair Jerome Powell as a self-defeating fiasco.  That’s a sentiment shared by many including 10 central bank governors a group that includes Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, and the chair of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde who released a signed statement supporting Powell. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee, probably emboldened by his decision to retire at the end of his current term, said that he won’t support any of Trump’s Federal Reserve nominees, including the nomination of the next Federal Reserve chair if the investigation into Powell moves forward.  Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski said that she supports Tilles and will do the same. In the absence of a confirmed replacement, Powell would remain as Chair past May.  Moreover, even if Trump gets a complicit replacement confirmed, it looks increasingly likely that Powell will stick around as one of the Bank’s Governors through 2028 which would limit Trump’s ability to get those rate decreases that he so desperately wants. The importance of having an independent Federal Reserve doesn’t mean much to most people who are more focused on their day to day lives but it should because the economies of countries where autocratic leaders have taken over the control of previously independent central banks, a group that includes Turkey, Venezuela, Hungary, and Zimbabwe, generally end up with out of control inflation.  Something to look forward to if Trump gets his way.

More 💩:  Senator/Astronaut Mark Kelly is now suing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over his attempt to lower his military rank and take away some of his retirement pay for speaking truth about following illegal orders.  Last night, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, another Democrat who signed on to the video reminding members of the military that they shouldn’t do illegal things, revealed that she is now being investigated by Washington DC US Attorney/Former Fox host Janine Pirro who together with Housing Agency head Bill Pulte is being blamed for triggering the Powell investigation which Trump claims he knew nothing about, as if. The arsonist who set the fire at Jackson Mississippi’s only synagogue admits that he set the fire because of its “Jewish ties.” Reports are that the situation in Iran is getting increasingly dire, lots of arrests and deaths with estimates ranging from 1000 to multiple thousands. In the good category, former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola, who won Alaska’s only House seat in 2022 but then lost it in 2024, announced that she’s running to try to unseat Republican Senator Dan Sullivan.  Peltola’s decision to run means that the Alaska Senate seat is now in play.   

  

 

Mississippi Burning 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤡

Deny and Lie:  Last week, the Trump administration posted a white washed fake history of the January 6 Capitol attack on an official US government website and during a two hour frequently rambling, very disturbing interview with the NY Times Trump said he regrets not seizing voting machines from swing areas after the 2020 election which he still says he won while also asserting that he won the state of Minnesota three times though he didn’t win it even once.  Therefore, no one should be surprised that Trump and his team, especially ICE Barbie Kristi Noem, are sticking with the assertion that Minneapolis shooting victim Renee Nicole Good was a domestic terrorist who got what she deserved because she should have known better than to question ICE’s activities.  Dolled up a little less than usual, Noem who was sent on the Sunday Morning news circuit to clean up her mess, lied her way through an unusually probing interview by CNN’s Jake Tapper.  She kept on insisting that video evidence proved that her ICE guys, most specifically shooter Jonathan Ross, acted appropriately, that he had no choice but to repeatedly shoot at Good, and then to deprive her of medical care, to avoid being mowed down by her car and then attacked by her zombie ghost? Oddly enough, one of those videos, taken by Ross while he was shooting Good, was provided by ICE.  Despite Noem’s assertion, that video doesn’t exonerate Ross, if anything it bolsters the argument that Good was unnecessarily gunned down, it certainly doesn’t help that one male agent, likely Ross, is heard calling her a fxcking bitch. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal summarized the results of their investigation into ICE’s vehicle related shootings. They noted that the Minnesota ICE shooting is one of 13 incidents where federal immigration agents have used deadly force against civilians in vehicles since July. They wrote that though traffic stops by police are common, “decades of research have produced widely accepted standards for conducting them safely and effectively.” However, since until now federal immigration officials haven’t regularly conduct traffic stops, they haven’t received much in the way of training in how to do them safely. Kristi Noem knows that, or at the very least ought to know that her agents are inadequately trained for what they’re doing and that, if anything, their actions were escalatory. That said, based on the smirk that formed on her face towards the end of her Tapper interview, it’s clear that she doesn’t care. To summarize, the official government position is that the unarmed Good who had just dropped one of her three children off at school and was transporting stuffed animals was a domestic terrorist deserving of the death penalty.  Those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, jeopardizing the lives of real police officers, the Vice President, and members of Congress, they were just unfairly prosecuted innocent tourists. And Trump won in 2020, and if stealing a few voting machines is what it will take for Republicans to win in the midterms, so be it.  

Legal Games:  Last night the DOJ revealed that they have subpoenaed Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s records, part of an effort to indict him for “lying” about the multibillion dollar plus renovation of the Federal Reserve complex during his testimony to Congress.  The renovation is very expensive, but then again, the building is almost 100 years old, needs lots of work including asbestos abatement, not that Trump believes in asbestos abatement, and it’s not like Trump whose East wing ball room keeps getting more and more expensive and who is spending $1 billion on his “free” plane has ever brought one of his boondoggle projects in on budget. Ironically, Trump who spent part of his Christmas holiday shopping for marble handrests for the Kennedy Arts Center, who keeps adding gold plaques to the White House, and who is spending $2 billion on the renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War is going after the Fed for fixing its chipped marble columns and for a project that seeks to keep the Fed complex true to the architectural style Trump purports to like.  It’s fairly obvious that Trump could care less about the project’s costs but is going after Powell because he’s pissed that Powell, who he initially appointed as Chair, hasn’t zeroed out interest rates.  Last night Powell took the unusual step of circulating a video in which he confirmed that he was being investigated while denying any impropriety.  He said that he will continue to do his job without fear or favor despite Trump’s intimidation tactics. Powell’s term as Fed Chair ends in May, his term as a Federal Governor runs through January 2028. In other legal news, Lindsey Halligan who is still pretending to be the US Attorney for Eastern Virginia has been called on the carpet by a federal Judge who wants her to explain why she keeps lying about being a US Attorney and a federal judge in NY has invalidated subpoenas signed by upstate “US Attorney” John Sarcone, because he like Halligan has never been confirmed.     

Economic Desperation:  Trump’s efforts to oust Powell early and his frenetic push for lower interest rates are just one of the many signs that despite his assertion that the economy is the best ever, it’s not, except for the richest among us. Despite his efforts at statistical obfuscation, Trump’s been unable to hide that hiring is way down, probably significantly lower than the anemic numbers released last week. He’s now throwing lots of things at the wall via executive announcement hoping that one or more of them will improve the economy and make housing more affordable. He’s ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to immediately buy up $200 billion in mortgages, he’s attempting to limit institutional purchases of foreclosed houses, and he’s trying to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a year.  Ironically, some of these policies have long been on the Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders wish list and were proposed by Kamala Harris. Moreover, as appealing as they sound to the layman, it’s not clear that they’ll help the average Joe or Jane be able to buy a house because there’s a shortage of affordable housing.  We need to build our way out of the housing crisis.  It doesn’t help that building materials have gotten more expensive due to Trump’s tariffs and that there’s a shortage of labor due in part to Trump’s deportation policies. Additionally, housing agencies buying up mortgages is one of those things that led to the 2008 mortgage crisis.  Furthermore, absent more supply, lower interest rates will increase competition for homes, raising prices and many beneficiaries of lower interest rates will be those refinancing their existing mortgage loans rather than new buyers.  Housing policy, like health care, is complicated.  

Fog:  It turns out that Nobel Peace prizes are not transferable so last year’s winner, Venezuela’s Maria Cortina Machado, can’t give hers to Trump.  That’s a problem because she planned to give him her prize to convince him to let her run the country that he’s now running mostly because he wants control of its oil resources. As to those oil resources, Trump’s Friday meeting with oil company executives didn’t go as planned because most of them have been burned by their previous investment in Venezuela and have little interest in spending billions there again. It doesn’t help that the kind of investment needed makes little sense given current oil prices.  In other news, Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against Greenland, repeatedly threatening to grab it away from NATO ally Denmark even though that would likely destroy NATO and is totally unnecessary since by treaty, the US already has the right to do a lot of the things Trump wants to do in Greenland.  Things aren’t going well in Iran, lots of people demonstrating and lots of people killed or jailed.  Peace guy Trump, who bombed ISIS targets in Syria over the weekend, is threatening the mullahs calling them out for their brutal treatment of dissenters. They deserve to be called out, but Trump seeking the moral high ground is kind of ironic.  Similarly, while he continues to assert his right to Venezuela and a few other places, like Greenland and Cuba, he told the NY Times that China won’t grab Taiwan and Putin won’t go after more of Ukraine and the rest of eastern Europe while he’s president because they “respect” him as opposed to Biden who he is still blaming for everything.  And last week by executive order Trump withdrew the US from 66 international organizations, agencies, and commissions.  Remember when his Trump One withdrawal from the Paris accords caused lots of outrage? This action seemed to just slip by among all the other insanity. 

Very Bad 💩: The only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi suffered severe fire damage this weekend as a result of an arson attack. The arsonist has been caught but we still don’t know much about him. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time this synagogue was set on fire. It was burned down by the KKK for aligning with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Speaking of anti-Semites, Trump told the NY Times that “we (MAGA) don’t like them.”  He blames Kanye West for anti-Semite Nick Fuentes, who he of course denies knowing, attending a Mar a Lago dinner and has no explanation for his administration’s decision to appoint Hitler fan Paul Ingrassia as Acting General Counsel of the GSA after his Hitler affinity made it impossible for him to get a Senate confirmation for another senior position. Tucker Carlson, the winner of the Anti Semite of the Year award for 2025 was a guest at the White House this week and VP Vance says he doesn’t want to kick anyone, anti-Semites included, out of the Republican tent.  On the left, unlike most NY politicians, Mayor Mamdani, failed to issue an official or timely statement condemning the “we support Hamas” crowd that chanted outside of a Queens, NY synagogue.  He finally said something in passing when asked by a reporter for a comment.  The both-sides problem is growing.      

        

 

Gaslighting Brigade 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤡

More Obfuscation: Trump’s response to the killing of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis woman who was fatally shot by an INS agent, is that she was the aggressor, a radical agitator out to mow down any Fed who got in her way; therefore, according to him, what happened to her was her own fault.  Keeping with the gaslighting theme, Veep JD Vance called Good a victim of leftist ideology rather than the victim of a bad shooting. He went on to assert that Jonathan Ross, the INS agent who shot her has absolutely immunity. He doesn’t not that he has much to worry about since the FBI has wrested full control of the investigation into the shooting and will not be cooperating with local officials.  That’s not normal, and given who is running the FBI right now, it’s fair to believe that the result of any investigation has already been predetermined: INS agent Ross will be declared a hero, Good a domestic terrorist, maybe Ross will even get a White House invite and a medal of honor.  Worth noting, law enforcement officials are trained not to shoot at moving vehicles in circumstances like this. They’re also trained or are supposed to be trained not to have their i-Phones in one hand while running, then shooting at someone, with the weapon in their other hand.  Apparently, Agent Ross, who the INS says had years of experience and who was wounded after a gnarly experience with a fleeing car last year hasn’t gotten that message or is still suffering PTSD from his prior experience, bad for him but lethal for Good. The Trump administration doesn’t appear to be backing down.  On Wednesday after the shooting, a team of Border Patrol agents led by Gregory Bovino, the Border Control Commander of short stature with a serious Napolean complex, chased a suspect into a local high school. That chase resulted in chaos, heightening fear in already tense Minneapolis leading to a decision by local authorities to close the city’s schools for the remainder of the week. Following directions from her dear leader,  Kristi Noem, another one who likes to act out, is sending 100 more agents to Minneapolis. What more could possibly go wrong in the already traumatized city?  It’s not just Minneapolis, yesterday two people were shot and injured by ICE in Portland, Oregon.  ICE said that the victims were weaponizing their vehicle, and maybe they were, but with all the lying about what happened in Minneapolis, it’s hard to know what really happened or whether shooting at people in a moving vehicle was the appropriate response under the circumstances. Congress has overfunded INS and its sister entities, they’re being run by people who obediently follow Trump and Stephen Miller’s orders, no matter how illegal, inappropriate, or suppressive. The next three years are going to be even harder than the last one and though it would be Pollyannish to believe otherwise.  With the “grey shirt” contingent growing our elections are in jeopardy. It certainly doesn’t help that Trump told the NY Times this week that he’s only accountable to his own morality.  Trump, morality, really?

Obamacare Subsidies: Yesterday, by a vote of 230 to 196 with 17(!) Republicans joining all Democrats, the House voted to cleanly extend the expired Obamacare subsidies for three years.  The trajectory of this vote is interesting, especially given that the failure to extend the subsidies was what led to last fall’s government shutdown.  At the end of last year, four Republicans (New York’s Lawler and Pennsylvania’s Fitzpatrick, Bresnahan, Mackenzie) crossed the aisle to support a Democrat led discharge petition forcing a vote on extending the subsidies. Instead of immediately following through, Speaker Johnson pushed the vote to January in the hope that his aisle crossers could be pressured to return to the Republican fold.  They didn’t, instead five more Republicans (New York’s LaLota, Ohio’s Miller, New Jersey’s Kean, Florida’s Salazar, and California’s Valadao) joined the original four and all Democrats in supporting a required procedural vote.  Yesterday, in a move that surprised many, especially Speaker Johnson, the group of Republicans supporting the extension of the subsidies expanded to include Ohio’s Carey, Texas’ De La Cruz, New York’s Garbarino, Colorado’s Hurd, Ohio’s Joyce, Iowa’s Nunn, Wisconsin’s Wittman. For the most part, the aisle crossers come from swing districts where they see the writing on the wall saying something like put up or get out.  The Obamacare subsidy extension bill is now in the hands of the Republican controlled Senate where sixty votes will be needed for passage. It’s unlikely that it will pass in its current form but maybe, just maybe a form of it with some qualification limits will make it. Some Republicans are trying to add further restrictions to the Hyde Amendment which prohibits federal funding for abortions to the bill.  That’s a nonstarter for Democrats.  Even Trump, who doesn’t support the subsidy extension, has spoken out against expanding Hyde.    

War Powers: The Obamacare subsidy vote isn’t the only one spooking Republican leadership and twisting Trump’s whatevers into knots.   Yesterday by a vote of 52 to 47 with five Republican Senators crossing the aisle to join all Democrats including Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman who’d been wavering, the Senate voted to advance Democratic Senator Tim Kaine’s War Powers Act resolution that would require "the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress." That’s a bigly slap on the wrist for Trump who reacted by saying the War Powers Act is unconstitutional and that the five Republican Senators, a group that includes Indiana’s Todd Young, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Maine’s Susan Collins, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, “should never be elected to office again.”  The passage of the resolution doesn’t mean that Trump’s actions will be curtailed but it does force a Senate floor debate in anticipation of another vote on his powers to be a warlord without Congressional authorization. In addition, the kind of cool thing about him pulling his support, or at the very least threatening to pull his support from Maine’s Susan Collins is that she’s up for reelection in a state that he lost in 2024.  She’s probably the only Republican who can hold that seat. Unfortunately, despite Trump losing yesterday’s vote he did chalk up two victories, his veto of water projects in Colorado and Florida were upheld.  

It's testy out there.  Stay safe.

 

 
Shocking But Inevitable 😱🤡 ✡️🌻😱🤡

 My Good Rant:  Yesterday’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis was both shocking and inevitable. Shocking because she’s dead and there was no reason for any ICE agent to repeatedly shoot her.  She may or may not have been interfering with ICE activities, but even if her car was blocking traffic the bystander provided video of her shooting appears to show that she wasn’t a threat to anyone, especially the ICE agent who repeatedly shot her. Moreover, Axios reports that another video provided by a different bystander shows that Good received conflicting orders from ICE with one agent telling her to move her car out of the way and another telling her to remain where she was. She moved her car, was shot and the ICE agent who later, probably on the advice of his superiors and their lawyers, claimed to be “injured,” walked away without any apparent injuries leaving her bleeding out. Even worse the ICE agents on the scene, wouldn’t let a neighborhood doctor who tried to help approach her vehicle, leaving their own medics to disrespectfully carry her body away by her limbs without a stretcher. Good wasn’t a member of antifa, she wasn’t a Soros funded political agitator, she wasn’t even one of those undocumented Somali immigrants that Trump has targeted and that ICE was out to get, not that shooting an immigrant of any color or nationality would have been okay.  She was any one of us, a white, Colorado born 36-year- old, a mother of three trying to alert residents of what looked like an ordinary peaceful American community that there were ICE agents out to get some of them.  She was doing what we all should do but what most of us don’t, either because we’re afraid or just don’t want to get involved.  As to the inevitability of her killing, though no one anticipated that Good would be the one to take a bullet in the head it was inevitable that someone would and would die because ICE, absurdly overfunded and now bloated with undertrained, frequently incompetent even blood lusting, agents is run by the deceitful, soulless, cosplaying, dog slayer Kristi Noem who takes her marching orders from the despicable duo of Stephen Miller and Trump and they see no problem shooting and killing anyone who gets in their way.  That both Trump and Noem are now defending her murder as justified is hardly surprising, that’s how they roll.  Trump is probably the only politician who thinks having his own Kent State moment is a badge of honor, something to display on his golden mantle next to his faux FIFA peace prize.  It’s hard not to share the sentiment of the outraged and visibly shaken Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey who during yesterday’s post shooting press conference shouted that ICE should get the fxck out of Minneapolis. Why stop there, they should get the f-ck out the country.  There was a time when I thought that believing that was too extreme, not anymore.  Sadly, following the direction of their emperor, the right is defending the ICE shooter while Good’s children are now motherless.

 

More 💩:  Yesterday Trump called for the $1 trillion defense budget to be increased by 50% to $1.5 trillion. It looks like all those wars and new Trump class battleships won’t pay for themselves and won’t be covered by his tariffs, the source that he keeps on insisting is paying for everything.  He also said that we will be “managing” Venezuela and its oil for years to come and that we’ve struck a deal with Venezuela’s new president Delcy Rodriguez, or president until he says she isn’t, to “share the revenue from Venezuela’s sale of 30 to 50 million barrels of oil.  By share, he probably means that the revenues will mostly go to his coffers because sharing has never been one of Trump’s strong points. The corrupt and evil Maduro is gone but despite the celebrations by the expatriate Venezuelan community the lives of Venezuelans are unlikely to improve anytime soon.  In other international news, keep an eye on Iran where protests have spread to 111 cities.  The “scale, spread, and ferocity” of the protests, particularly in cities like Mashhad and Bandar Abbas where there have been reports of police joining protestors in some instances.    

And:  Maryland Democrat Steny Hoyer, the third longest serving member of Congress, is expected to announce his retirement today. The 86-year-old Congressman was a member of Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team.  His retirement is not surprising but with Pelosi exiting too at the end of this term, his departure represents a changing of the Democratic guard. His district is reliably Democratic so while there will be a competitive primary for his replacement, his departure won’t impact the size of the Democratic caucus.

RIP Renee Nicole Good.