I did not watch Donald Trump’s speech last night but the reviews of it were so scathing that I decided to see for myself, helped by the fact that it was less that 10 minutes long and I felt I could stomach it. So I did and my reaction was that he looked like a person who knows he is in a bad situation and does not know how to get out. Trump’s strategy in the face of bad news is distraction and deflection. He could always create some new issue by saying something idiotic or making a stupid suggestion that he had no intention of carrying out, and the media would scurry after it. But there can be no deflection from the government shutdown. There is nothing he can do that is going to prevent an ever-increasing crescendo of attention to the fact that the government is grinding to a halt. I thought that he might throw a Hail Mary pass and declare a national emergency as a distraction but he didn’t.
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Donald Trump is appalled that new congresswoman Rashid Tlaib referred to him as a ‘motherfucker’ and his puppy House minority leader Kevin McCarthy joined in clutching his pearls.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy expressed his anger with Tlaib’s comment Friday, saying, “That action should not stand. Somebody should stand up to her.”

The president also weighed in at a Rose Garden appearance, saying Tlaib “dishonored herself” with the “disgraceful” remark.

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Donald Trump is planning to give an address to the nation tonight at 9:00 pm that will be carried live on all the major TV networks. I will not be watching it because I find it hard to watch him lying in real time. I will choose instead to read later about all the lies and fear-mongering that I expect him to deliver as he gets increasingly desperate to get out of the box he put himself into by tying funding for his wall with keeping the government open. Expect to hear apocalyptic visions of the doom facing the nation if the wall is not built.
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We are seeing a familiar scenario play out now that the Democrats made sweeping gains in the November elections and switched 40 seats to gain control of the House of Republicans. They now have a 235-199 majority with the disputed seat in North Carolina still to be determined. As a result, they can set the legislative agenda and now have sweeping powers to investigate all the abuses of the Trump administration.
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While the House of Representatives is passing bills to fund the government, the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is refusing to bring those bills up for a vote in that body, even identical ones that had been passed at the end of last year when Trump had indicated he would agree to it before he abruptly reversed course and demanded finding for his stupid wall.

But not to worry, the Senate is not doing nothing. While the government grinds slowly to a halt and people undergo hardships as a consequence, Ryan Grim and Glenn Greenwald write that the very first bill that the Senate is likely to bring up is one that punishes people who criticize Israeli policies and support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement that is intended to pressure the government of Israel to end its apartheid-like treatment of Palestinians.
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The NFL has been utterly craven in its response to the kneeling protest launched by quarterback Colin Kaepernick to highlight police brutality. They have clearly conspired to punish him and any others who protest by denying them the chance to play. Now it appears that some major stars are joining the protest by refusing to perform in the Super Bowl half-time show, once a much sought after gig for any entertainer.

Some of the biggest names in pop and rap, including Rihanna and Cardi B, have turned down the opportunity to appear, while one group that has reportedly been booked, the Adam Levine-fronted pop-rock act Maroon 5, is facing pressure to pull out. Rapper Travis Scott, the only performer reportedly secured to join the show, is facing pressure from hip-hop superstar Jay-Z and civil rights groups to pull out. With four weeks to go, producers of the 13-minute event are scrambling to find additional performers for what Variety last week called “music’s least wanted gig”.

Of course, I will watch neither the game nor the half-time show since I feel that evidence of rampant traumatic brain injuries has placed football on the same level as boxing, a throwback to the gladiator days when people risked their lives for the entertainment of the public.

It is truly fascinating to see how Republicans and conservatives are freaking out over new Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, criticizing everything that she does, says, and even the clothes she wears. But they are finding out that she does not give a damn and is throwing it back in their faces. Peter Wade has a nice article about how she has responded.

And when Great America PAC Chairman Ed Rollins bashed Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed top marginal rate of 70% from her Green New Deal, calling her “a little girl,” she fired back.
…

“GOP loves to insult my intelligence… If anything, this dude is a walking argument to tax misogyny at 100 percent,” Ocasio-Cortez responded to Rollins in a tweet. “Republicans rob everyone the opportunity of real policy debate by resorting to this,” she added.

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We have all heard Donald Trump at various times proclaim what a genius he is and how he knows so much more about practically everything than anyone else. Thanks to Rod Painter, I came across this tweet that has a mashup of all the times he has made this kind of boast. To see them consecutively is really something.

Trump is the #1 expert on…
– Taxes
– Construction
– Campaign finance
– Drones
– Technology
– U.S. History
– Infrastructure
– ISIS
– Facebook
– Renewables
– Polls
– Courts
– Steel workers
– Golf
– Banks
– Nuclear arms
– The system
– Debt
– Politicians

…according to Donald Trump pic.twitter.com/Pfh92Gtmtc

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) January 4, 2019

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2019 saw the implementation in 20 states and 24 counties and cities of new laws raising the minimum wage.

THANKS TO LEGISLATIVE efforts, ballot measures and adjustments for inflation, workers in 20 states will see an increase in their minimum wage in 2019.

These minimum wage increases, which range from a $0.05 inflation adjustment to a $2 per hour increase, will impact 5.2 million workers and, for those who work year-round, it will raise their annual pay between $90 and $1,300, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report. On Jan. 1, 2019, 24 cities and counties will also raise their minimum wages.

Though the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009, there has been a growing movement across the nation to raise this number at both the state and local levels.

In 29 states, the minimum wage now surpasses the federal level, and a handful of state have pledged to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next few years.

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