Thursday, January 16, 2025
Jimmy Carter's legacy: The only president ever to pardon a disgusting piece of trash who was convicted of sexually molesting a child
Peter Yarrow, of Peter Paul and Mary fame, made a 14-year old girl wank his weenie in a hotel room in 1970. He served three months for his crime.
WaPo in 2021 wondered if there were other victims.
Jimmy Carter pardoned Peter Yarrow at the last second in 1981, while we were distracted with the release of the Iran hostages and the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.
Both disgusting wankers have now died, just days apart: Jimmy on Dec 29th. Peter on Jan 7th.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
I track average prices for over 40 basic foods in the U.S. city average: Just four made new all time highs in December 2024
Round roast $7.486/lb
All uncooked beef roasts category $7.719/lb
Table wine, red and white $13.985/liter
Beer $1.812/pint
Core cpi inflation in December 2024 yoy was 3.2%, annual average 3.43%, which was 75% worse than 2017-2020
The 2017-2020 average annual rate was 1.96%.
The four year average annual rate 2021-2024 under Joe Biden clocks in at 4.48%, almost 129% worse than under Trump I.
During 2024 the year over year measure has been at 3.3% or 3.2% every month from June inclusive, but stonks are soaring today as if something has changed.
Nothing's changed.
FBI failed to investigate Pete Hegseth, GOP Senators afraid of being primaried just fine with it
A gross dereliction of duty on the part of the Republican-controlled Senate and the Trump-directed FBI. That is a harsh but unavoidable assessment of the confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth to serve as Donald Trump’s defense secretary. ...
Only [Senators] Wicker and Reed were permitted to review an FBI report that Reed described as “insufficient.” The FBI failed to question Hegseth’s second wife, despite her expressed interest in being interviewed. It didn’t speak to the woman who accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her — and was paid by him in exchange for executing a nondisclosure agreement. It didn’t obtain the forensic audit of a veteran’s organization Hegseth ran that found “evidence of gross financial mismanagement.”
Mayer reported that “the F.B.I.’s background investigation also failed to interview Fox News personnel who had described Hegseth to NBC News as smelling of alcohol on the job as recently as last fall. Instead, sources say that the Bureau settled for an interview with a public-relations official at Fox.”
The FBI’s role here is troubling, because the bureau is supposed to serve as the Senate’s chief source of reported and reliable information about the individuals whose nominations it is considering. ...
The bureau has argued that the scope of its inquiries is limited by the directions it is given, in this case by the Trump transition team. But the Trump team’s goal is to win confirmation, not to get to the truth of the matter — which makes a Trump-directed FBI investigation worse than meaningless; it makes it effectively a coverup.
More.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
I don't care what you think of Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA, he nailed Pete Hegseth's unrepentant ass to the canvass
Pete Hegseth is no repentant Christian. He's a phony baloney plastic banana good time rock 'n rolla.
This man represents a new low for the GOP.
From the story here:
“I want to return to the incident that you referenced a minute ago that occurred in Monterey, California, in October 2017,” Kaine opened. “At that time, you were still married to your second wife, correct?”
After Hegseth agreed that he believed so, Kaine followed with “And you had just fathered a child by a woman who would later become your third wife, correct?”
“Senator, I was falsely charged and I fully. investigated and completely cleared,” Hegseth said of the sexual assault allegation, but Kaine pressed.
“So you think you are completely cleared because you committed no crime? That’s your definition of cleared?” Kaine pressed. “You had just fathered a child two months before by a woman that was not your wife. I am shocked that you would stand here and say you are completely cleared. Can you so casually cheat on a second wife and cheat on the mother of a child who had been born two months before? And you tell us you are completely cleared. So how is that completely cleared?”
“Senator, her child’s name is Gwendolyn Hope Hegseth, and she’s a child of God, and she’s seven years old,” Hegseth replied.
“I mean, you cheated on the mother of that child less than two months after that daughter was born, didn’t you?” Kaine pressed.
“Those were false charges. Well, no, totally investigated. And I was completely cleared. And I’m so grateful for the marriage I have to this day,” Hegseth answered.
“So you’ve admitted that you had sex at that hotel in October 2017. You said it was consensual. Isn’t that correct?” Kaine continued. “You’ve admitted that it was consensual, and you were still married, and you just had a child by another woman again. How do you explain yourself?”
“Completely false charges against me,” Hegseth insisted, even though he agreed to a non-disclosure agreement and financial settlement with his accuser.
A jag off is someone who pulls out just in time, like Pete
Although there were at least seven times that he didn't, that we know of anyway.
Senator Jack Reed, D-RI, West Point graduate, US Army Ranger, paratrooper 82nd Airborne, drops the hammer on Pete Hegseth in the opening, speaks for the America we once knew and loved
But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, bluntly told Hegseth, “I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job.”
Reed said he finds the allegations against Hegseth “extremely alarming.”
“I vote in favor of all your predecessors, including those in the first Trump administration. Unfortunately, you lack the character and composure and competence to hold the position of Secretary of Defense,” Reed said.
More.
Jack is a patriotic liberal, ticking almost every box, in the mold of George McGovern, a B-24 Liberator pilot during WWII who won the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Meanwhile, speaking of wholesale prices, you are paying $9+ a dozen for eggs in some places because producer prices averaged $4.62 in December
That would be 75-cents for an egg that cost the producer about 19-cents.
I got a $1 off 18 eggs yesterday at a nearby health food store and paid $6.99, 39-cents each.
Why eggs are selling for over $9 a dozen in some places—and when prices are expected to drop
The biggest factor pushing up egg prices is a wave of avian flu, which began in early 2022 and led to the culling of millions of egg-laying hens. With demand remaining steady, the reduced supply has caused prices to rise.
This is the second time egg prices have surged since 2022, following a previous wave of avian flu that wiped out large numbers of egg-laying hens and caused supply shortages that year. Avian flu has wiped out over 100 million chickens since a major outbreak began in early 2022.
You would think chicken prices would go up, too, but I consistently get chicken thighs in bulk at Sam's for $1.38/lb, and have done so right through the pandemic.
And the rotisserie chicken remains $4.98, too.
We'll get December consumer prices tomorrow. Here's November's chart for eggs:
Ignore the expectations game, wholesale prices were up year over year 3.3% overall, and core prices up 3.5%
Three consecutive months of increases measured year over year for overall producer prices, FIVE for core.
But the stock market cheerleaders always play it this way:
Inflation watch: Wholesale prices rose 0.2% in December, less than expected.
Yeah, only half of the people we expected to be destroyed were. Good news!
The charts:
Monday, January 13, 2025
COVID-19 in the US is at an historic low for this time of year
COVID-19 in national US wastewater analysis:
12/28/24: 04.75
12/30/23: 13.28
12/31/22: 10.99
1/1/22: 17.17
California's prison inmates tasked with doing the job Governor Gavin Beavis Newsom won't do: Removing the timber and brush ahead of the wildfires but after it's too late
Absolute lol.
Gavin Newsom faced a recall election, but survived to prove in this new case that he more than deserved it. Just incredible stuff there in California.
28 paragraphs in.
Los Angeles wildfire deaths rise to 24 as more fierce winds are forecast
Along with crews from other states and Mexico, hundreds of inmates from California’s prison system were also helping fight the fires. Nearly 950 prison firefighters were removing timber and brush ahead of the fires to slow their spread, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The practice is controversial as the inmates are paid little for dangerous and difficult work: $10.24 each day, with more for 24-hour shifts, according to the corrections department.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Neither of these guys won a tectonic election: I can't believe we're still talking about this
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| 49.71% |
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| 50.73% |
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| Oh, we'll have to wait . . . for pigs to fly |
US Treasury yields are steepening and by duration are normalizing
This is actually a good thing.
Longer dated securities should pay more than shorter, unlike most of 2024 when Bills paid far more.
Bills yields on average on Friday match the Daily Federal Funds rate exactly, falling in tandem with it in 2024 from the 5.33 range to 4.33 now. They've been pretty stable at this level for five weeks now.
The fall in Bills yields actually ran in front of the Fed decision to make the first rate cut in September by many months.
The fall commenced after May when the Fed announced it would institute a slight decrease to its tighter money policy through balance sheet operations involving UST beginning in June.
Bills yields fell hard for four months into September even as core inflation year over year remained flat at 2.7% over the period. Investors locked in higher but rapidly disappearing return.
Yields on Notes and Bonds also plunged, but against most predictions they rebounded in the face of the Fed rate cuts, which is quite amusing. Longs got their lunch eaten.
The simplest explanation is that longer dated securities anticipate more inflation, and the Fed simply pushes on a string. Bond vigilantes demanded more return for the rising risk.
People who didn't appreciate fixed income turning into a casino like the stock market hid out in cash and did just fine. VMRXX returned 5.24% last year.
There are over $6 trillion in T-bills outstanding at the end of 2024 vs. $2 trillion to start 2018, out of a total of approximately $28 trillion total UST outstanding.
Unfortunately for buyers of houses and cars, long money is going to cost you more, as yields on Notes and Bonds climb again in anticipation of recalcitrant inflation and increased deficit spending under Trump.
The average four year new auto loan was 9.36% and the 30-year mortgage 6.93% last week.
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