Inflation Sticks at 2.7% – Month-over-month inflation was 0.3% in December for a 2.7% Consumer Price Index comparing consumer prices versus December 2024. This was steady from November’s CPI. Shelter was the largest factor, the Labor Department says, at +0.4% month-over-month, with food +0.7% and energy +0.3%. [Chart: Bureau of Labor Statistics]
THURSDAY 1/15/26
Cosmetic Diplomacy – Troops from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden Thursday have been deployed to Greenland in a “show of support” to defend the world’s largest island against the Trump administration’s desire to take it over, according to the AP. This comes after Foreign Ministers Vivian Motzfeldt of Greenland and Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Wednesday over the president’s threat to take Greenland by force, if necessary.
Motives behind the president’s desire to claim Greenland become a bit clearer as The Guardian reports that Estée Lauder heir and longtime Friend of Trump Ronald Lauder has “acquired commercial holdings” there. “Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to demand a share of the war-torn country’s resources.”
Meanwhile, Art of the Deal Elsewhere … The main account holding $500 million in revenue from the sale of seized Venezuelan oil is in Qatar and remains controlled by the US, Trump administration officials told Semafor. According to the news outlet’s scoop, Trump’s advisors remain confident oil companies will make more deals for purchase. Chevron is the only US oil company that remains operational in Venezuela.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Economic Club of Minnesota last week that the Treasury Department “will oversee the accounts” and “then at the president’s direction [and] Secretary Rubio’s direction” will be in charge of revenue disbursements that are returned to Venezuela. –TL
________________________________________________
WEDNESDAY 1/14/26
Greenland, Denmark in the (White) House – Foreign Ministers Vivian Motzfeldt of Greenland and Lars Lokke Rasmussen of Denmark meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance at the White House Wednesday to discuss Greenland’s future.
President Trump has been clear about his intentions: “The United States needs Greenland,” he Truth Socialed. “If we don’t take Greenland, Russia and China will,” Trump told reporters, according to The New York Times.
Last week, the president said the US was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
Also last week, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Trump’s threats “should be taken seriously” and warned a US attack would end the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Though Trump said he would not rule out military force, Secretary of State Rubio, clinging to his Voice of Reason role in the White House, said Trump plans to buy Greenland – not invade it.
Trump won’t miss NATO … Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin won’t, either.
Whatever the means for taking over Greenland, it would achieve Trump’s world vision of the US ruling its part of the hemisphere, from the arctic island south by southwest to Venezuela and probably points south of that. There would be a post-NATO European alliance of some sort struggling to hold back Putin’s Russia (as takes Ukraine and looks further west) while China rules the East (and probably significant parts of Africa, where China’s Silk Road project has already made significant inroads).
[It’s one of those Trump White House inconsistencies that the president doesn’t like European Union governments, but he does like European immigrants.]
Saving NATO … Can Congress assert a bill to stop a Trump administration military invasion of Greenland? There’s fair warning to give time to prepare, at least, unlike the attack on Venezuela and capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the weekend after New Year’s.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have introduced the NATO Unity Protection Act, which would prohibit use of Defense Department or State Department funding to “blockade, occupy, annex, or otherwise assert control” over any sovereign territory of a NATO member state, The Hill reports, while Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) has joined House Democrats to introduce the No Funds for NATO Invasion Act.
Florida plan … These bills follow Trump loyalist Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) two-page Greenland Annexation and Statehood Act, according to Axios. Drawback for the GOP is that if Greenland were to become the 51st US state (and not Canada) it would certainly send two Democratic senators and one Democratic representative to Capitol Hill. –TL
________________________________________________
TUESDAY 1/13/26
Minnesota Federal Prosecutors Resign Over Investigation – Joe Thompson, assistant US attorney for the District of Minnesota, has resigned after top Justice Department officials pushed the office to investigate the widow of Renee Good, Minnesota Public Radio’s MPR News reports. Five other US attorneys, including Melinda Williams, Harry Jacobs and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez also resigned.
Thompson also had objected to the Justice Department’s decision to keep the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from taking part in the investigation of the shooting and the department’s reluctance to investigate Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent pictured in multiple smartphone videos of the alleged shooting of Good, according to persons familiar with Thompson’s decision to step down.
•••
Iran Irony – After 16 days of protests in Iran, 646 people have been killed, consisting of 505 protestors, 133 military and law enforcement personnel, one prosecutor and seven non-protesting citizens, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. These are likely bare-minimum numbers due to a digital blackout that has used military jammers reportedly supplied by Russia to cut off Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet, Forbes reports.
President Trump has cancelled talks with Iranian leaders, warning that those responsible for such violence would “pay a big price,” according to Newsweek. Last week Mark Dubowitz and Behnam Ben Talebu in The Atlantic wrote that Trump could topple Iran’s repressive regime if he acted fast.
On Monday, Trump announced that countries that do business with Iran will be subjected to a 25% tariff “immediately” if they trade with the US, an added tariff that would hit China and India hard, according to The New York Times.
Iran along with North Korea is probably the most oppressive regime in the world. This latest uprising against Iran’s theocracy [looking at you, too, Christian Nationalism advocates] marks the latest, and possibly greatest hope that its citizens can finally topple the 47-year-old regime.
However, Trump’s support for his government’s position – pre-investigation – that Renee Nicole Good was “weaponizing” her Honda Pilot against ICE when ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot her in Minneapolis last week must be mentioned in this context. The overall context that ICE’s imposing presence in Minneapolis and other major cities is even more noticeable for fears by most pundits outside the MAGAsphere that this is “practice” for a crackdown on voters for suppression in blue urban areas ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
Shortly after the tragedy, Vice President JD Vance called Good’s fatal shooting the result of her own actions as “part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and make it possible for our ICE officers to do their job.”
After Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis” Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem announced last Sunday that the Trump administration will send “hundreds more” federal agents to the city “today and tomorrow” to support the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
NPR’s Morning Edition reported on Tuesday that Minnesota and Illinois are suing the federal government over tactics used by immigration agents, after the fatal shooting of Good.
According to “gun-violence journalism” news outlet The Trace, the Gun Violence Archive in Washington, D.C. has identified 16 incidents in which immigration agents opened fire and another 15 incidents in which agents held someone at gunpoint as the current administration begins its sixth cumulative year in power. Four have been killed, including Good, and seven injured, according to the report. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa