The benchmark finished the day at 6,118.71, surpassing its prior all-time closing high of 6,090.27 recorded in early December.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
S&P 500 new record high close: 6,118.71
Hegseth advances to a final vote with 51-49 vote to end debate, with Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins voting against him
Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Pentagon clears a key hurdle in the Senate
I find myself in small company agreeing with two of the most liberal Republicans in the US Senate, but that's what's become of the men.
Amateur hour 2.0: Trump thinks he can tell the bond market what to do when not even the Fed can do that lol
Welcome to the party, pal.
 |
| yippee-ki-yay mofo |
President Donald Trump says he’ll ‘demand that interest rates drop immediately’
Does this dope pay attention? Oh, that's right, he doesn't pay anyone.
Anyway, the Fed cut rates by a full point since the September meeting, and rates on bonds and notes soared anyway.
The Fed can't demand anything, but President Goofy Nuts pretends it can, and he can.
OK, she's right, good for her
Sen. Lisa Murkowski to vote against Hegseth, first Republican to oppose a Trump Cabinet pick
... senators have remained doubtful of his experience and abilities and the alleged behavior that could lead to reprimand or firing for military personnel he would now be expected to lead. ...
USA fascist police state to expand facial recognition to over 400 US airports
TSA has deployed identity verification tools at more than 80 airports thus far, with the ultimate goal of expanding the technologies to over 400 airports in the coming years. These new units, known at CAT-2 systems, take real-time pictures of travelers — the “face capture” aspect of the tools — and then compare the images against their scanned photo identifications — in this case, in a process known as “one-to-one” facial recognition. ...
“On average, the TSA CAT-2 identity verification process took 23 seconds per person,” the analysis said. “It took well under 30 seconds for all demographic groups, and all demographic groups were within a few seconds of the average.”
More.
Never fly.
Swim.
When eating the road kill catches up with you
Tim is the US Representative for TN-2.
Burchett says he believes aliens have underwater bases on earth
“When they tell me something’s moving at hundreds of miles an hour underwater, and our capabilities … and these things, this one was, it was large as a football field underwater. And this was a documented case, and … and I have an admiral telling me this stuff,” Burchett said Wednesday.
Like Pete Hegseth, the early Americans were strong boozers
"ED: What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about American history?
"SY: I first came across W. J. Rorabaugh’s Alcoholic Republic as a graduate student, and it completely changed the way I thought about early American history. From 1790–1840, average alcohol consumption in America peaked at 7.1 gallons of distilled liquor per capita, over three times today’s consumption rate. When I share this fact with my students, it helps explain two important developments: first, the pervasiveness of violence in antebellum America. Alcohol fueled the mobs, riots, lynchings, vandalism, and duals that threatened the nation’s growing urban areas and the often lawless frontiers. Second, the appeal of the temperance movement. My students often scoff at the 18th Amendment and the failures of Prohibition, but temperance had broad popular appeal as a social cause precisely because alcohol was a pressing problem in the nineteenth century. Most Americans knew someone whose drinking had led to domestic violence, suicide, or poverty."
More.
Eaton fire 91% contained, Palisades fire 68% contained, new Hughes wildfire blows up overnight to 2/3 the size of the Eaton
The Hughes fire is north of LA, Eaton to the east, Palisades to the west.
New wildfire near Los Angeles explodes to 9,400 acres, forces evacuations
. . . The Eaton Fire that scorched 14,021 acres (57 square km) east of Los Angeles was 91% contained, while the larger Palisades Fire, which has consumed 23,448 acres (95 square km) on the west side of Los Angeles, stood at 68% contained. . . .
Burnin' ring of fire.
Peak Baby Boomers worked when they were teenagers, at 2.07% of population, still the peak, today at just 0.78% of population
Get a haircut and get a real jobClean your act up and don't be a slobGet it together like your big brother BobWhy don't you, get a haircut and get a real job?
-- George Thorogood, 1993
It's not a perfect one to one comparison, let alone an actual measurement, but about 20% of teenagers worked in 1979, and not quite 12% today:
J6er: Who he pardoned, he pardoned
“I’ve been asked, you know, I’ve been pardoned, how do I feel about people that may have done other things, and they got pardoned. Well, that’s President Trump’s decision. Who he pardoned, he pardoned.
More.
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
-- Romans 9:15
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Gold up to $2,759.83, close to record peak $2,790.15
Spot gold added 0.6% to $2,759.83 per ounce as of 0941 GMT. The price hit its highest since Nov. 1 earlier in the session and is close to its record peak of $2,790.15 hit in October.
More.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Pete Hegseth reportedly has had episodes of drinking to the point of passing out
I get the drinking too much until you barf. I mean, that's pretty much been Freshman Life 101 forever and a day. Pete was a freshman in college in 1999-2000.
But it takes a special kind of excess to drink until you pass out.
Is it true?
Who knows.
One incident was allegedly in 2013, when he was about 32, at which time he had earned an MA from Harvard. Another was when he was about 28, in 2009, when his first marriage ended. That's a long time after graduating from Princeton University in 2003.
The precise timeline is uncertain because his birth year isn't precisely known, and the new revelations come from a former sister in law, married to Pete's brother from 2011-2019, who can't remember the dates exactly.
Anyway, I don't get why the new SECDEF absolutely, positively must be this guy, with all this sooty baggage. No one is that indispensable.
From The Wall Street Journal here:
Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior that was given to U.S. lawmakers and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The sworn statement, submitted in response to a request from Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was signed by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth. It states that she was with Hegseth when he passed out from drunkenness in the bathroom of a bar in Minneapolis in about 2013. It also describes another night, when she said Hegseth drank so much at a restaurant in Minneapolis that the Uber driver had to pull over on Interstate 94 so he could throw up.
In her sworn statement, Danielle Hegseth said she personally observed erratic and aggressive behavior by Hegseth, witnessing him abusing alcohol multiple times over the years. One Christmas in 2008 or 2009, he drank so much that he threw up and passed out, she said. ...
Trump executive order reverses Biden's pause on new approvals of LNG projects
It is little discussed, but Biden's pause on the new projects was based, in part, on the negative impact on prices paid by consumers because natural gas was being diverted to LNG exports. Reduced domestic supply has led to higher prices paid by consumers:
The current economic and environmental analyses DOE uses to underpin its
LNG export authorizations are roughly five years old and no longer
adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost
increases for American consumers and manufacturers beyond current
authorizations or the latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas
emissions.
Natural gas diverted to export already reached 10% of production in 2022.
Reported here:
The president reversed the Biden administration’s pause on new liquefied natural gas export facilities. Trump directed the Energy secretary to start reviewing new LNG projects as quickly as possible.
Natural gas prices have exploded by 210% since Trump was elected in November.
Irrational exuberance produces flatulence, recently floated meme coin $FARTCOIN lingers in the air at $1.8 billion market capitalization
Something smelly this way comes.
David Einhorn says we have reached the ‘Fartcoin’ stage of the market cycle
“Other than trading and speculation, it serves no other obvious purpose and fulfills no need that is not served elsewhere.”
A crypto token called “fartcoin” exploded in popularity as the re-election of Donald Trump unleashed a storm of animal spirits on Main Street. The meme coin is now edging towards a $2 billion market value, surpassing many U.S.-listed companies.
More meme coins have emerged since the inception of fartcoin. President Donald Trump launched $TRUMP, a meme coin built on the Solana platform. Its market cap over the weekend climbed past $14 billion. The coin at one point was down more than 20% over the past 24 hours, but it has since cut its losses to around 3%. Trump’s wife Melania also unveiled a coin.
Marco Rubio confirmed as Secretary of State in 99-0 vote, voted for himself lol
The Senate on Monday unanimously confirmed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as America’s 72nd secretary of State, putting in place the first member of President Trump’s Cabinet on the day of his inauguration.
Rubio’s confirmation vote passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 99-0. Rubio also was able to cast a vote for himself.
Reported here by The Hill at 6:52pm yesterday.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced Sunday that Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted would replace Vice President J. D. Vance in the US Senate, but he has not yet been sworn in, hence the 99-0 vote for Rubio.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday, January 16th that Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody will replace Rubio in the Senate after Rubio formally resigns.
Senate panel advances Defense secretary nominee Hegseth on party-line vote 14-13
The Hill reported here yesterday at 5:37pm.
90% of the 250,000 inauguration ticket holders got stiffed by Trump's move of the inauguration indoors
MAGA fan traveled 2,700 miles to DC - but is forced to watch Trump inauguration on iPad
Brian Roy traveled from Seattle last week and was among around 250,000 people who had tickets to view the inauguration from around the Capitol grounds before the ceremony was moved indoors.
About 2,600 VIPs were let in to the Capitol venues, and 20,000 regular folks into the arena. The rest were like Brian.
Way to go, Brownie!
Gold hits two-month high
There's funny money like $Trump and $Melania, and then there's the real thing.
Spot gold climbed 0.7% to $2,726.75 per ounce, reaching its highest level since Nov. 6 and nearing the all-time high of $2,790.15 set in October.
More.
Monday, January 20, 2025
As if the pre-emptive pardons of Fauci, Milley, and the Jan 6 lynch mob weren't bad enough, Biden pardoned his own siblings and their families at the last second
Meanwhile, earlier in December Biden's own Department of Justice warned Jan 6 "insurrectionists" that accepting a pardon from Trump would amount to a confession of guilt.
So Fauci, Milley, et alia are all ipso facto guilty.
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