Jack Smith is testifying live to a House committee regarding his investigation into January 6. I keep turning the hearing on and off again because the Republicans are too annoying. There are also live updates at The Hill. There’s going to be special coverage on MS NOW tonight and maybe I’ll just watch that.
Trump’s speech at Davos yesterday was a disaster. If anyone on the globe hadn’t already realized Trump is a mentally addled and erratic despot who has no idea what he’s talking about regarding just about anything, they all know now. Yet he’s allowed to remain in office and in charge of the largest nuclear-armed military in the world. There could be no clearer demonstration that the entire political system of the U.S. is hopelessly corrupted.
Here’s a bit more, from Lawrence O’Donnell.
Regarding Trump’s “most favored nation” drug plan, which he believes has already delivered 800 percent lower drug prices to American consumers — apparently the pharmaceutical companies Trump thought he had a deal with haven’t cut any U.S. prices at all. However, they have raised the prices of some drugs sold elsewhere, just so they can they say are meeting Trump partway. Since drug prices in many other countries are set by law, they don’t have much room to maneuver in that regard.
There’s a piece at Wired by Garrett Graff headlined We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower. It begins:
Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?
Nothing.
Right on cue, the NY Times is running an analysis headlined China Wins as Trump Cedes Leadership of the Global Economy. (Note: The NY Times is having some technical issues regarding gift links; I’ll try to get a gift link later today.)
In a long, rambling address that was by turns bombastic, aggrieved and self-congratulatory, President Trump pronounced last rites on American leadership of the liberal democratic order forged by the United States and its allies after World War II.
Mr. Trump used a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday — a pilgrimage site for adherents of globalization — to assert that the United States was done offering its markets and its military protection to European allies he derided as freeloaders. And he vowed to advance his trade war. He characterized tariffs as the price of admission to a land of 300 million consumers.
“The United States is keeping the whole world afloat,” Mr. Trump said. “Everybody took advantage of the United States.”
Of course, no country benefited more from the old arrangement than the United States, but Trump is too stupid to understand that.
Where is the Greenland issue, btw? Trump seemed to think he had made some kind of satisfactory deal, or at least had the framework of a deal, but what I’m reading today suggests this deal may exist only in Trump’s head. See the BBC, What we know about Trump’s ‘framework of future deal’ over Greenland. There were earlier stories leaked by somebody that somehow some areas of Greenland would be ceded to the sovereignty of the U.S. But Secretary General of NATO Mark Rutte, with whom Trump was negotiating, said that they didn’t discuss sovereignty at all. And Denmark/Greenland say that sovereignty is off the table and behind a red line and probably an impenetrable forest of thorns and ghosts and spells by several witches. Ain’t gonna happen. So nothing is settled.
I’m hearing that Trump is keenly interested in rights to Greenland’s mineral resources. The problem is that even if the U.S. had the “rights” to the minerals, actually extracting those minerals from Greenland would take more investment in money and time than the stupid oil in Venezuela and it’s unlikely any part of the private sector would take it on.
Let’s hope Trump doesn’t notice there really isn’t any more of a deal with Denmark than there is with the pharmaceutical companies.
Meanwhile, the Trump-made crisis in Minnesota appears to be escalating, with no end in sight. See David Kurtz at TPM for the latest.
The GQP'ers are so damn predictable. They had Smith testify behind closed doors a month or so ago, took his testimony to their paid shill lawyers, political hacks, professional liar talking point generators and now with an attack plan in hand written for them they will have him testify in public. It amazes me that they still want to drag all this up over and over. They have already convinced the mouth breathers that the election was stolen and J6 was a legitimate protest I really don't think they can rewrite history for the maybe half of the country that still has a functioning prefontal cortex!
J.D. Vance on the economy:
"You don't turn the Titanic around overnight"
Brilliant.
I see two or three pluses (it's going to be back and forth, peeling away magas until we get back in power)
– Jack Smith is testifying in public, holding his own against the Rs
– the Davos crowd called 45's bluff by threatening to unload US debt, and even closing US bases. Carney's speech was a turning point. Trump backed down, his blather notwithstanding.
– CNN reported that Trump has made $1.5 billion off the presidency, more than his entire real estate career, if I read it right. This last point should get through the brains of the fools who can't find Canada on a map.
The TPM article said that the memo that authorizes warrantless searches was leaked to Senators by two inside sources. This is an aspect I'd like to know about after Trump has been removed, but it's a good sign.
I've read that Vance is using the word 'mistakes' regarding ICE excesses, without being specific or even hinting at reform. But it indicates that the immense bad reputation that ICE has earned carries positives with MAGA for cruelty, but will demolish the GOP in the next election with everyone else.
MN is doing a fantastic job of warning of ICE presence and, if reports are true, of refusing service to ICE, even locking doors to prevent access to the rest room. Questions are being raised online about the ICE bonus, when paid, and what strings are attached. ICE may be threatening to sue for repayment of the partial bonus paid but if the job requirements, in real life, involve torturing people (or participating by restraining a prtester to be maced) the ICE agent has cause to quit and no repayment of advance money would be justified. (Or it seems that way to me.) I heard there was a data dump of ICE agents, names and addresses. Can they be reached by legal organizations about their right to leave ICE and recourse if ICE threatens them. This is psych warfare – we should consider expoiting that front.
The Epstein files are absent from our news media coverage except for the accusations of contempt of congress being levied at Hill and Bill by the GQP of which nine democrats voted for. The ICE nazi debacle in Minneapolis is in the news and is not good for diaper don except seven democrats decided to vote to fully fund ICE and the nazi stormtroopers shooting mothers in the face and detaining four-year-old children. Had those seven democrats voted against the bill it would have been defeated, but good old Hakeem decided not to whip the vote. If it wasn't abundantly clear before (it was) it certainly should be now that those two losers Chuck Shumer and Hakeem Jefferies need to go.
On an unimportant but consequential subject, a federal judge had a hearing on the Epstein Ballroom, brought by the commission who should have been consulted before the demolition of the East Wing. This group would also have major influence on the architectural review and approval.
No official decision but the judge did not seem to be buying the arguments Trump's mouthpiece was making. The most likely outcome will put the ballroom on the slpw track to approval. I don't expect it but when an decision comes down, I hope the judge saus that the construction company who proceeds without approval will be on the hook for the costs of taking out unapproved construction.
This project is tied to Trump's ego as closely as ICE abuses are Miller's wet dream. Delay this as thoroughly as Trump did his trials. Technicalities, plans, do-overs…. prevent a single nail from being pounded until after the 2028 elections. And have the media ask Trump directly about the progress on the ballroom at every opportunity.
Quote of the day:
"Trying to provoke both a world war and a civil war at the same time while demanding a Nobel Peace prize is a level of insanity we've never seen ever before."
This what the seven democrats voted for yesterday, they wanted to get the vote over with so they could talk about the economy!
https://packaged-media.redd.it/iivuad4ngbfg1/pb/m2-res_854p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1769284800&s=0832a0aa03119e4054f5206f00916923521b2f95