The rumors are true. Donald Trump has fired Pam Bondi. Todd Blanche, one of his personal lawyers from his criminal trial in New York and a former federal prosecutor, currently serving as Deputy AG, will take her place.

Bondi will return to the private sector, according to Trump. (CBS had reported she would remain in the Administration in another capacity.)

Many are speculating that the reasons for the firing are her mishandling of the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case. There's also her failure to fulfill his personal vengeful agenda and file charges against Adam Schiff and Letitia James.

Donald Trump sounds out of breath.

He starts with a lie and will just keep going.

We are working with Venezuela and getting along incredibly well. We are now totally independent of the Middle East.

He says he has been planning to decimate Iran since 2015 when he first decided to run for office.

Our last open thread is full. Here's a new one, all topics welcome.

The "war" in Iran continues. Israel is picking off Iranian leaders, one by one. Iran continues its drone attacks, and the number of wounded American service people grows.

Social security is going to run out of funds at least a year ahead of schedule. Why? I think it's because of the mass immigrant detentions, and the voluntary and forced deportations. Immigrants, whether here lawfully or not, work using a real or fake social security number. Their employers pay into social security for each one of them on the payroll. The reduction in the immigrant labor force means the amount paid into Social Security is less.

In less than a year, the second Trump Administration stripped 1.6 million immigrants of their legal status, upending the lives of immigrants who came into the United States “the right way,” severely damaging our economy and national security, and only growing the undocumented population in pursuit of its anti-immigrant agenda.

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It's hard to believe only four weeks ago the U.S., at the whim of Donald Trump, invaded Venezuela to snatch its leader Nicolas Maduro. The New York Times (free link) reports he thinks his strategy was a big success and intends to duplicate it in Iran:

Mr. Trump’s decision to snatch Mr. Maduro from his bed, but keep the rest of the Venezuelan leadership in place, is an experiment in remote-control occupation. After the Delta team landed by helicopter that early January night, killed Mr. Maduro’s Cuban and Venezuelan guards, and seized him seconds before he could lock himself in that safe room, Mr. Trump blessed the installation of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president. She will stay there, he has said, as long as she follows Washington’s instructions.

...In a brief conversation with The New York Times on Sunday, on the second day of the American and Israeli attack on Iran, he cited the Venezuela experience as a model for what he was trying to accomplish in Iran. “What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario,” Mr. Trump insisted. “Everybody’s kept their job except for two people.”

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

The photo above is of the burning Fairmont Hotel in Dubai, which Tehran hit with drones this past weekend in retaliation for the strikes on Iran. The Wall St. Journal, (free link) which posted a video of the burning hotel, reports:

Missiles and drones rained down on Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, targeting bases and other strategic sites and scattering debris from intercepts. The attacks marred the business-friendly reputation Gulf countries took years to build.

The retaliations continue (free link).

The State Department [has] urged Americans to immediately leave 14 countries, and closed U.S. embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after they were hit by drones.

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The House Oversight Committee has released the videos of Bill and Hillary Clinton's depositions on Jeffrey Epstein. You can watch Bill here and Hillary here.

Hillary was feisty and her opening statement is well worth watching.

BBC has this summary of their depositions.

Rep. Lauren Boebert published on her social media account,

Just when you think our country is at an all-time low and things can't get any worse, Donald Trump brings us even lower.

According to the New York Times (free link here),

In a secret deportation arrangement, the Trump administration flew nine people, nearly all of whom had been granted U.S. court protections from being sent back to their home countries, to the African nation of Cameroon in January.

None of them are from Cameroon, according to government documents obtained by The New York Times and lawyers for the deportees, and the United States has not made any public deal with Cameroon to accept deportees who hail from other nations.

How much of our taxpayer money did Donald Trump offer Cameroon to take these detainees?

To make matters worse, they have been held for the past month in a "compound" in Cameroon's capital, and have been told they will only be released to their home countries, despite the U.S. having granted 8 of the 9 of them protection against being returned to their home countries due to risk of torture or persecution.

“Sending people to a third country where they are coerced into deportation to the country that we cannot deport them to is flatly illegal,” said Scott Shuchart, a former ICE official who worked in the Biden administration.

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I may not care for football but I will be watching this afternoon to see Bad Bunny's half time show, which he'll sing in Spanish. He is probably the biggest global performer in the world right now.

Close behind is Shakira, who just began her weeklong residency in El Salvador where she had her first concert last night. Tens of thousands of her fans crossed El Salvador's borders (legally) to be able to see her in person. Every hotel room in the country is reserved and she's expected to bring many millions to the local economy. El Salvador's gang-crushing President, Nayib Bukele, said he was determined to make sure everyone was safe and thus has deployed 3,000 military and civil guards to the venue. Here's a photo of what they look like.

Bad Bunny brought $400 plus million to Puerto Rico's economy during his music residency which just ended.

At the Grammy's last week, Bad Bunny began one of his acceptance speeches with:

A Minnesota judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the Department of Homeland Security prohibiting it from destroying evidence pertaining to the killing of Alex Pretti.

U.S. District Court Judge Eric Tostrud granted a temporary restraining order against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Saturday, barring the department from altering or destroying evidence connected to Pretti's killing.

How about a restraining order banning ICE from conducting enforcement operations in Minnesota?

The Wall St. Journal (free link here) says the videos don't support the claims of law enforcement. I'm not surprised, are you?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Donald Trump went to Davos and came out guns blazing, saying the U.S. would take over Greenland. If any country disapproved, he said, he'd slap new tariffs on them. He even mocked Europe's leaders on social media:

He trolled European leaders with a social media post that showed him planting an American flag on Greenland territory, near a sign that read, “Greenland, US Territory, Est. 2026.”

Turns out, he didn't get the reaction he expected. In fact, he ended up capitulating and saying ok, we won't take over Greenland, and ok, we won't impose new tariffs. In other words, Trump caved.

Trump’s reassurance that America’s military won’t seize Greenland at gunpoint settled the financial markets, as did his pledge to forgo tariffs on Europe as a prod to relinquish Greenland.

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There's a lot to break down, from the Golden Globes to Venezuela and its Oil to Minnesota, ICE, Iran, Colombia, Greenland, and the Trump family's unstoppable (so far) greed, sticking its dirty, small fingers in every pie it can get a slice of.

Have at it, this is an open thread, all topics welcome.

P.S. "Dead Flowers" is from the Stones album "Sticky Fingers". One of my top three favorite Rolling Stones song ever.

Happy New Year to all! Photos of the celebrations around the world are pretty awesome.

Still, the world is not a happy place today. America has watched in disbelief as Donald Trump has chipped away bit by bit at the very core of our democracy. Even prominent hard-core MAGA supporters are scratching their heads at his latest actions, and refusing to stay silent.

Trump's primary game plan has always been deflection. Change the subject, provide false facts, promote conspiracy theories and juxtapose the victim and aggressor.

Since it worked for him the first time around, he's been back at it every day during his second term. How do we encourage more of his MAGA supporters to jump ship, and also remain engaged and vote for Democrats in the mid-term elections?

How do we turn Trump's deflection game on its head? Democrats Abroad has some ideas. I'll just quote one section: [More...]