Is four days long enough since Iranians killed American soldiers for them to escape back to Tehran or nah?

 SHOWDOWN: Pentagon plans for strikes on Iranian personnel and facilities approved...

Weather will be a major factor in the timing of the strikes, the U.S. officials told CBS News, as the U.S. has the capability to carry out strikes in bad weather but prefers to have better visibility of selected targets as a safeguard against inadvertently hitting civilians who might stray into the area at the last moment. ... [SECDEF] Austin told reporters the U.S. was trying to "hold the right people accountable" without escalating the conflict in the region.

Another Fed interest rate pause and dashed hopes for a March rate cut, so the greedy money men throw a little temper tantrum

 Core inflation has a long way to go before it's like it was in the Trump era.

Meanwhile the little people continue to pay, and pay, and pay.

Obama affirmative action hire admits she's not up to the task of serving on the Supreme Court

 SOTOMAYOR OVERWHELMED...

 “Cases are bigger. They’re more demanding. The number of amici are greater, and you know that our emergency calendar is so much more active. I’m tired,” she said, per Bloomberg Law. 

In Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll in Pennsylvania, it's still the economy, stupid: More important to women voters than abortion by 29 points, the cost of everyday goods being the most important economic factor

 The women shop. The women remember.

The massive poll results for seven swing states is available here.

The women think Trump is the one to fix it, by 11 points.

 

 

Trump 2024: What doesn't kill him only makes him stronger

 

Now why would they do that lol?

 

MAGA GOES TO WAR ON SWIFT    

Norway, Europe's most anti-semitic country, is also its most fascist economy, centered in dem ebil fossil fuels lol

 Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, was established in the 1990s to invest the surplus revenues of the country’s oil and gas sector. To date, the fund has put money in more than 8,500 companies in 70 countries around the world.

More.

Real Clear Politics becomes The Grauniad lol, The Grauniad is convinced that killing your baby is the winning issue of our time

 

Abortion Is Biden's Strongest Issue. He Should Act Like It

Moira Donegan, Guaridan

The left is upset that Joe Biden isn't more enthusiastic about it, dammit:

 

Biden himself is not a particularly convincing abortion rights advocate. He is, at best, unenthused about the issue. Biden speaks of abortion in stilted, euphemistic terms, talking about “restoring the protections of Roe” or “a woman’s right to choose” more than “abortion”. (He did not use the word in public remarks until he was forced to after facing pressure from activists.) On the stump, he frequently ad libs, straying from prepared remarks to make his dislike of abortion clear. In one set of remarks last year, he unhelpfully offered that he was “not big on abortion”. In remarks this past week, he characterized his own position using anti-choice buzzwords, saying he was opposed to “abortion on demand”. ... Biden is talking like he believes that abortion remains a delicate issue, as if it is something he thinks he will lose by being too strong on.

The slide into the surveillance state picks up the pace as TSA to expand facial recognition scanners from 30 to over 400 US airports

 TSA Expands Facial Recognition Scanners to 400+ Airports...

 “The CAT-2 units are currently deployed at nearly 30 airports nationwide, and will expand to more than 400 federalized airports over the coming years,” the TSA official said, noting that it is currently optional for travelers to participate in facial recognition screenings. Those that decline to do so can notify a TSA agent and go through the standard ID verification process instead. ... During a discussion at the South by Southwest festival in March 2023, TSA Administrator David Pekoske said “eventually we will get to the point where we will require biometrics across the board because it is much more effective and much more efficient.”

Currently optional, eventually required.

Dingbat Pelosi cries Russia! Russia! Russia! when it's Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran

 

Pelosi: FBI Should Investigate Progressive Groups Calling For Gaza Ceasefire, Possible Financial Ties To Russia

Left Wing Turns Airports Into Homeless & Illegal Alien Dumping Grounds

Right Wing Turns Planes & Airports Into DEI Battlegrounds

David Ingram, NBC News

 

Meanwhile:

 

Biden Offers Airports in Atlantic City, on Canadian Border to House NYC Migrants

 

South Jersey leaders oppose proposal to shelter migrants at Atlantic City International Airport

 

Chicago's O'Hare Airport used as a migrant shelter as crisis overwhelms city: 'Like a scene from Mad Max'

 

Migrant families set up camp in Boston airport as Bay State overwhelmed by arrivals: ‘We need DC to act’

 

Hundreds of migrants living in San Diego airport as California battles 'unimaginable' homeless crisis

Three US soldiers killed, 25 injured in drone attack in northeast Jordan

 

Just absolute shit journalism from The Wall Street Journal, by Egyptian American Nancy A. Youssef: "the Oct. 7 start of Israel's war in Gaza"

Administration officials have asked Beijing to convey messages to Iran about avoiding a broader conflict in the region, since the Oct. 7 start of Israel’s war in Gaza.

More.

What happened on October 7th, Nancy?

Israel did not start this war.

Biden administration half-measures fail to prevent another ship damaged by Houthi ballistic missile fire in the Gulf of Aden

Chemical tanker M/V Marlin Luanda called a Mayday after the Houthi ballistic missile attack set it on fire. Coalition forces including France and India responded and the fire was eventually extinguished, but not before the crew temporarily had to abandon the ship.

 

Anarcho-tyrant Joe Biden should be impeached for flooding the country with millions of illegal aliens under his unprecedented false promise of asylum

Under Biden, millions of migrants — in a move that has no precedent in recent history — have been released into the country under a haphazard presumption of asylum eligibility and led down a hazy legal pathway.  Others have been admitted under different programs that lack any clear or permanent path to citizenship. Dealing with the legal fallout from the Biden administration’s decision to release millions of migrants into the country will be the real challenge. ...

The most recent statistics available are from November, when the immigration court backlog reached a record-breaking 3 million pending cases, up from 2 million cases a year earlier. Some migrants may have to wait a decade for a court date. Although the Biden administration has hired more judges over the past three years, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse reports that “more judges and higher case closures per judge have still not been able to keep pace with the flow of incoming cases.”

The result is a self-perpetuating disaster.

More from The Boston Globe.

 

Under anarcho-tyranny, government fails to enforce the laws and perform the functions it has a legitimate duty to enforce and perform, while it invents laws and functions it has no legitimate duty or valid reason to make or carry out. ... While one characteristic of anarcho-tyranny is its propensity to criminalize and punish the innocent and the law-abiding while refusing to punish the criminals, another is its refusal to enforce the laws it has already enacted and to enact more laws that have no effect on real crime and that further criminalize the innocent or restrict their rights. ... Under anarcho-tyranny, the state creates a problem (which sometimes actually has some connection to reality), declares an emergency or crisis—the drug war, drug emergency areas, the carjacking crisis, Islamic fundamentalism—and then exploits that problem as an instrument by which it continues to enhance its power, though neither the fake problem it exploits nor the real problem that exists is affected.

More from Sam Francis.

Core pce inflation is out and shows itself running ahead of the 10-year US Treasury yield for four consecutive years 2020-2023, which is unprecedented

Jerome Powell is the biggest phony inflation fighter the country has ever seen.

He was appointed by Trump! So much winning!

Core pce inflation previously exceeded the ten year yield in 1974-75 and in 2012 (barely).

The Fed's primary inflation-fighting tool has been the Federal Funds Rate, but it let inflation run wildly out of control before even lifting a finger to stop it in March 2022 when the Fed finally acted and started raising the rate.

It is a shameful episode which has benefited businesses which hiked prices higher than inflation to goose profits, and the federal government which desperately needed to devalue its mounting debts, all at the expense of the average American.

The lack of outrage over this is a study in the depth of American servitude. Slavery didn't end in 1865 for African Americans. It became the common lot of us all.

 

 

Ann Coulter: Ron DeSantis was filled with hubris from 2022 and misread the room, thinking the whole country was his Florida oyster

His 20-point victory in 2022, when Republicans were wiped out in the rest of the country, made DeSantis disinclined to consider the advice of people who were just trying to help him. ... DeSantis was running as if the entire voting population consisted of people with kids under the age of 18. In fact, that’s only about 20% of voters.

More.

I said as much last July, noting that 70% of Americans think having illegitimate children is morally acceptable.

The country is literally demoralized, which explains why it has the leadership it has, except in places like Florida, at least through 2026.

Florida is one of twenty-five states where governors are term-limited.  

New Hampshire primary exit polling on the illegal alien invasion shows Nikki Haley's vote came overwhelmingly from Democrat voters

New Hampshire primary exit polling shows Nikki Haley's vote is overwhelmingly in the bag for the new crazy asylum gimmick for illegal aliens flooding the border under Biden, which means her voters were mostly from Democrats. 

 . . . two-thirds of Haley voters said that undocumented immigrants should be given the chance to apply for legal status.

More.

The gimcrack redefinition of the asylum system under Joe Biden is simply the latest Democrat m/o at work about everything: Find a work-around around the law when you don't have the votes to change the law.

That explains the National Popular Vote Compact, Obamacare, student loan bailouts, et cetera. Redefining millions of illegal aliens as asylum seekers is simply the latest example.

New Susquehanna poll shows Biden +8 in Pennsylvania, Republicans who missed Quinnipiac poll on 1/8 already showing Biden +3 there think this is new

 Polls didn't just suddenly turn in PA.

The Susquehanna poll shows Trump underperforming with Republicans at 77%.

That is probably because of senior citizens.

Previously Quinnipiac showed PA senior citizens overwhelmingly supporting Biden 60-37, and Trump with his lowest favorable rating among seniors, at 33%. 

They probably had friends who died of COVID and blame Trump.

 

As stock indexes make new all time highs, it's still a 7% world, not a 16% world

The current $SPX world, from Aug 2000 (market peak) to Dec 2023, dividends reinvested, average per annum return: 7.019% nominal.

The previous world of similar length, Apr 1977 to Aug 2000: 16.246% nominal.

Remember that no one even dates the bull market conditions of the past starting from 1977. The Reagan bull began in the summer of 1982. But even from 1977, it was a completely different, better world for investors.

The rate of nominal return per annum was 2.31 times better in that world.

Investing $100 per month in the previous world produced over $258k. Investing $100 per month in the current world has produced only $103k.

The following Vanguard mutual funds have inception dates in the year 2000. They reflect the same reality.

I show nominal average annual return since inception for each fund in 2000 through 12/31/23, per Vanguard.

Performance in red beats average SPX nominal 7.019% since 2000, but none by much. Remember that through 12/31/23 stocks generally were only recently buoyed by exceptional returns, after a down year last year. $VTSAX, the total stock market index, was up a whopping 26.01% in 2023.

VIGAX 8.21 Growth Index

VFIAX 7.62  500 Index

VTSAX 7.90  Total Stock Market Index

VEXAX 8.22  Extended Market Index

VSGIX 8.93  Small Cap Growth Index Inst.

VESIX 4.47  European Stock Index Inst.

VSMAX 9.01 Small Cap Index

VBAIX 6.70  Balanced Index Inst.

VBIAX 6.57 Balanced Index

VPKIX 3.40  Pacific Stock Index Inst.

VVIAX 7.18 Value Index

VEMIX 6.37 Emerging Markets Stock Index Inst.

VIPSX 4.49  Inflation Protected Securities

 

These are but a shadow of the former things which obtained in the previous world.