DC Shut Down? The GOP Does Davos.

The president has shut down the U.S. government by refusing to authorize federal spending, but presidential aides and cabinet officials are spending $3-4 million and change to go to the World Economic Forum at Davos, kind of a Coachella for billionaires and financial heavies at a resort in the Swiss Alps.  Administration figures scheduled to attend include: Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

U.S. officials at Davos will have a significant weight lifted from their shoulders at this year’s WEF. Unlike last year, President Donald Trump will not attend. Swiss protesters must be crestfallen.

Because of the Democrats intransigence on Border Security and the great importance of Safety for our Nation, I am respectfully cancelling my very important trip to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. My warmest regards and apologies to the @WEF!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2019

More:

“Trump’s team is still running up bills for Davos during the government shutdown,” Justin Rohrlich and Heather Timmons, Quartz

“Davos, other Swiss ski resorts warned of high avalanche danger,” Xinhua

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Brett Kavanaugh’s High School Reunion

Mark Judge and “Squi” didn’t show up, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh hung out at Georgetown Prep’s Reunion last weekend, attending Friday’s Stag Night and the Homecoming game on Saturday. There was plenty of beer, but not for the judge:

“At one point during the football game, Justice Kavanaugh prepared to pose for a picture with former classmates. First, though, he instructed everyone to put down their beers, according to a person who witnessed the exchange (Justice Kavanaugh didn’t appear to be drinking.). “

— “Back at Georgetown Prep, Kavanaugh Is Hailed as a Hero,” Kate Kelly, New York Times

More:

“Justice Brett Goes To High School Reunion, Class Praised For Its ‘Loyalty,’” Elie Mystal, Above the Law

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Trump to Meet Real Billionaires at Davos

Serial bankrupt and reality-TV star Donald Trump will meet some real billionaires when he joins the global titans of business, finance, and economic policy in two weeks at the 48th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Mr. Trump, an ethnocentric isolationist who publishes his economic policy on baseball hats, will converse with Nobel laureate economists, world leaders, and international financiers on the theme “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World,” which “will make a case for renewed commitment to international collaboration as a way of solving critical global challenges.” Since this is the kind of elite crowd and Globalist agenda Mr. Trump campaigned against, his presence at the Forum is baffling, especially since the Davos golf season ended in October.

The 2018 Forum is co-chaired by 7 powerful women: Sharan Burrow (General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation), Fabiola Gianotti (Director-General, European Organization for Nuclear Research – CERN), Isabelle Kocher (CEO of French multinational electric utility company ENGIE), Christine Lagarde (Managing Director, International Monetary Fund — IMF), Ginni Rometty (Chairman, President and CEO, IBM Corporation), Chetna Sinha (Founder and President, Mann Deshi Mahila Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation), and Erna Solberg (Prime Minister of Norway). Mr. Trump’s last meeting with women of so many nations involved a swimsuit competition, and didn’t have a code of conduct.

Davos 2016

The billionaire masters of Planet Earth and their pet politicians are in Davos this week for the 46th World Economic Forum. The US is sending a high-powered team led by Joe Biden, John Kerry, Kevin Spacey, will.i.am, and Leonardo DiCaprio. You can join them for a mere $31,473 a ticket, if you’ve paid your $50,000 WEF dues. Hotel, dining, and valet parking are extra. Gatecrashers and the improperly dressed will be politely turned away by police and 5,000 Swiss soldiers.

 

The Forum is going to be really inconvenient this year due to security concerns. You’ll have to land your private jet at Dübendorf military airbase and get to Davos by limo, helicopter, or horse-drawn carriage.

This year’s agenda will focus on Industry 4.0, aka “The Fourth Industrial Revolution … the fusion of technologies across the physical, digital and biological worlds which is creating entirely new capabilities”and replacing laborers with robot employees. Naturally, Forum members want to speed up that process. And WEF is concerned about women, too, and that’s why this year almost 20% of Davos attendees are women. Progress!

More:

“62 People Own Half the World’s Wealth, Oxfam Says Ahead of World Economic Forum,” Pan Pylas, NBC New York

“Get a grip on inequality, leaders urged in run-up to World Economic Forum,”  AP via Chicago Tribune

“The 2016 World Economic Forum Misfires With Its Fourth Industrial Revolution Theme,” Jeremy Rifkin, Huffington Post

“Davos Robot Eclipses Davos Man as Gloom Descends on World Elite,” Simon Kennedy, Matthew Campbell, The Guardian

“Industry 4.0 to be huge job killer,” Deutsche Welle

“Robots put five million jobs at risk,” SwissInfo.ch

“Report from Davos: ‘Men still run the world—and it’s not going that well,’” Jenny Anderson, Quartz

“The failure of Davos,” Felix Salmon, Fusion

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Trump: Born on Third Base

“’It has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars,’ Trump remarked. ‘I came into Manhattan, and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest.'”

— “Trump: My dad gave me a ‘small loan’ of a million dollars,” Nick Gass, Politico

Trump père, Fred, left an estate worth $200 million in 1999, and son Donald, self-made man, inherited about $40 million of it.

“I’m running for office in a country that’s essentially bankrupt, and it needs a successful businessman.” — Donald Trump in Rolling Stone.

Donald J. Trump was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. He isn’t rich because he’s a great investor. He’s rich because his dad was rich, because he likes to spend other people’s money, and because he enjoyed government incentives. But given that head start, just how successful has he really been?

Davos 2015

Deep thoughts at Davos this week at the 2015 World Economic Forum. 80 billionaires and many more multi-millionaires are meeting in the exclusive Swiss resort to solve the global problem of economic inequality. They flew to the alps on 1700 private jets to end Global Warming. We anxiously await the auguries and edicts of our oligarch overlords.

Davos 2014

It cost the 2,500 participants at the 2014 World Economic Forum meeting at Davos $40,000 each to attend, $20,000 for the ticket (“accreditation”) alone. But the billionaires and their pet politicians didn’t ignore the global crisis of economic inequality. They had millionaire rock stars and movie stars tell them all about it.

“Davos Wants You to Know It Really, Really Cares About Inequality,” Elias Groll, Foreign Policy blog

“Jetsetters ponder poverty gap over mulled wine,” Toby Manhire, New Zealand Herald

“Where is the Davos for the 99 percent?” John Aziz, The Week

“Davos 2014: from PMs and CEOs to Goldie Hawn, Matt Damon and Bono,” Simon Goodley, The Guardian

“The two Davoses: Short-term greed, long-term paranoia,” The Economist blog

“Pope Urges Davos Notables to Remember the Less Fortunate,” Michael J. de la Merced, New York Times blog

“Social Responsibility Weighs Heavy on Economic Chieftains at Davos,” Katrin Bebnnhold, New York Times blog

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Vote for the Millionaires of Your Choice

“If millionaires were a political party, that party would make up roughly 3 percent of American families, but it would have a super-majority in the Senate, a majority in the House, a majority on the Supreme Court and a man in the White House. If working-class Americans were a political party, that party would have made up more than half the country since the start of the 20th century. But legislators from that party (those who last worked in blue-collar jobs before entering politics) would never have held more than 2 percent of the seats in Congress.”

— “Which Millionaire Are You Voting For?” Nicholas Carnes, New York Times

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Choose: Hoops or Dancing Horse?

On the eve of the first 2012 Presidential Debate, we’re told that this is “The Big Choice,” and we couldn’t agree more. Consider these two men:

Barack Obama is a pickup basketball freak and likes an occasional burger and beer. He and the missus took out student loans to get through college and law school, and both held down jobs while they raised two kids. They own one house, in Chicago. Some of that probably sounds like people you know.

But how about this guy? He owns a dancing horse, his wife drives two Cadillacs, he thinks $250,000 a year is a middle class income, sold two of his four mansions because he was “downsizing and simplifying,” and paid for college the hard way, by selling off some of the stocks his dad gave him. He’s never worn a plastic rain poncho or polyester, and his friends own NFL and NASCAR teams. Recognize him? Of course. Mitt Romney.