Rubio Gets Unanimous Confirmation; Hegseth, Noem Advance

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The Club of Clubs takes care of its own — but even by that standard, Marco Rubio hit a grand slam. After spending several years building relationships with his Senate colleagues, Rubio won the first Cabinet confirmation in Donald Trump’s second term. Late in the afternoon, the upper chamber gave Rubio a unanimous vote to become Secretary of State:

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The Senate on Monday resoundingly confirmed colleague Sen. Marco Rubio to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of State, making him the first member of the 47th president’s cabinet to win the chamber’s backing.

The swift Senate vote, 99-0, for Rubio followed shortly after the senior senator from Florida received unanimous support, 22-0, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of which he was a member for his 14 years in the Senate. … 

At his hearing last week, Rubio impressed his colleagues with his knowledge of a wide range of issues including the declining number of countries that diplomatically recognize Taiwan, the regulatory landscape of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security partnership, International Criminal Court indictments targeting senior Israeli leaders, support for Ukraine, China’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea, and the recent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

All of this is true, but almost beside the point. Rubio prepared well for the hearing, of course, but he could have mailed it in and still been confirmed by acclamation. Rubio’s work on the Foreign Relations Committee is more than enough to justify his appointment, and the Senate loves to confirm their colleagues. 

But even more, Democrats need to support Rubio in order to rationalize their opposition to Trump’s other nominees as anything other than petty partisanship. That’s why the Senate held a roll call vote for the confirmation; they could have just as easily confirmed Rubio by unanimous consent or a voice vote. Democrats want a record that shows they backed a Trump nominee when they come after other Cabinet appointees such as Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert Kennedy Jr. 

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It won’t make much difference in the end for most of these, however. Hegseth probably had the highest risk of rejection, but instead the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced Hegseth to the floor on a party-line vote:

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted Monday along party lines to send Pete Hegseth’s nomination to be defense secretary to the Senate floor as President Donald Trump tries to move quickly to get critical members of his Cabinet in place. 

All 14 Republicans on the committee voted in favor of Hegseth, while all 13 Democrats voted against him. Despite initial concerns about allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse and financial mismanagement — all of which Hegseth has denied — not a single Republican senator has said so far that he or she will vote no, meaning he is most likely on track to be confirmed by the Senate.

Thursday is the soonest that vote would occur in the full Senate unless all 100 members agree to move things along more quickly.

Democrats could delay this by demanding the 30 hours of floor debate that the rules allow, but what’s the point? John Thune could demand a more expedited process by threatening to keep the Senate in session continuously for 30 hours to get the vote more quickly. I’d guess that Thune and Chuck Schumer will agree on something more like 12 hours, which is plenty of time for debate, especially since there does not appear to be a clear back-up at the DoD in the meantime. 

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Kristi Noem will get a far easier and likely quicker route to confirmation. The Senate Homeland Security Committee passed Noem’s nomination to the full Senate on a nearly unanimous vote:

A Senate committee cleared President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with a bipartisan vote, paving the way for a Senate floor vote.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) by a 13-2 vote.

The vote in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee makes Noem one of a handful of nominees to be voted out of committee on Trump’s first day in office. She still has to be approved by the full chamber.

This is a bit surprising, given Noem’s intention to focus on implementing Trump’s immigration policies, which Democrats have obstructed in the past. Noem could cruise to an early confirmation; Democrats may be keeping their powder dry for Tom Homan later on.

Also getting a bipartisan-but-not-unanimous committee win is John Ratcliffe, whose nomination for CIA Director will now likely move quickly as well:

John Ratcliffe took a step closer to being confirmed to lead the CIA on Monday as the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced his nomination.

The panel advanced his nomination 14 to 3 shortly after President Trump was sworn into office. All three “no” votes were cast by Democrats.

The vote comes days after Ratcliffe’s confirmation hearing, which was largely cordial and void of fireworks. That marked a major change from 2020 when Ratcliffe, then considered a highly-partisan choice to become Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who Democrats deemed unprepared for the role, was confirmed in a party-line vote. 

However, Ratcliffe’s work during his tenure as DNI helped grease the skids for his confirmation this year, especially his stance on China and promise to Democrats to keep the agency apolitical.

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Also greasing skids is the Democrats’ political conundrum. They spent the last several years shrieking about how Trump had been disqualified from office, only to find out that voters very much disagreed. It might be finally dawning on them that they have cried “wolf” several times too many, and now voters don’t believe a word they say — and that the media says, either. 

Posted in Republican News

And the New Hoaxes Begin…

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Did Elon Musk give a Nazi salute at an inaugural rally with Trump supporters? In a sane world the question would be absurd to even consider, but we live in the Truman Show. 

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If you believe the Pravda Media and the left-wing hoaxers, you might think he did. I took a quick break from watching X and the festivities to lie down yesterday afternoon and was greeted by a torrent of tweets insisting that Elon Musk has liberated his inner Nazi and spoke at the Nuremberg rally or something. 

CNN was, of course, merely repeating what Democrats and all leftists on X were repeating ad nauseum: THE MASK IS OFF, THE NAZIS ARE OPEN ABOUT IT! Aaron Rupar went there. Many accounts went there. It was the meme of the day. 

And, of course, it was all BS. 

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As with the “fine people” hoax, this was a masterclass in deceptive video editing for the purpose of character assassination. This time around the sly edit was omitting what Elon Musk said in an emotional call out to the crowd. 

He puts his hand to his heart and symbolically throws it out to the crowd, and enthusiastically says, “My heart goes out to you!”

That, my friend, is what makes you a Nazi, according to our Pravda Media. Throwing your heart out to a crowd. 

You could do this sort of thing to just about anybody, just as you can make anybody look intellectually disabled by freezing a frame in a video to catch their face in some sort of awkward contortion. 

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This is what Karine Jean-Pierre would call a “cheap fake,” right? Except the Biden videos weren’t taken out of context. 

I know a bit about Rupar because he used to be based here, and he pretended not to be a partisan hack. We all knew he was, and he barely pretended not to be. 

But because he worked for the Pravda Media, it didn’t matter. He was as honest then as he is now, which means not at all. 

By now this sort of hoaxing only works on the truly deranged, but don’t underestimate the number of such people. In a country this large, this amounts to many millions of people, and the point is to stir up as much hatred as possible. 

I don’t think it will hurt Trump or Musk with the vast majority of people. But hate fuels the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and the media is working hard to keep hate alive. 

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This is why I have said many times now, far more than the Democrats, the Pravda Media is our real enemy. Democrats, for the most part, are simply mercenary. They are hoping that the progressives can whip up enough energy to help them make gains in the smaller turnout elections of the midterms. If they realize that hate hate hate doesn’t get them enough votes, they will shift positions somewhat. 

But the media–it is their job to spread The Narrative, and because of that they must be destroyed. 

If you need a reminder of how shameless the Pravda Media is, Jake Tapper, who just got hit with a judgment for slandering a veteran after a trial that proved malice on his part, had this to say “misinformation.”

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You can’t make this stuff up. The Pravda Media will go down fighting, and we have to crush them utterly, burn down their buildings, and salt the earth on which those buildings stood (metaphorically). 

Pravda delenda est. 

Posted in Republican News

Monday’s Final Word

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Well … bye …

Ed: And that’s the final word on one of the most incompetent and disgraceful presidencies in American history. We’ll be back tomorrow with our usual commentaries, but I thought our readers would appreciate the final moment of Joe Biden’s political career. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!

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But if this isn’t enough, maybe we can call this Monday’s First Word …

Posted in Republican News

BREAKING: Trump Signs Clemency Action for 1500+ J6 ‘Hostages’

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Another promise kept. 

Donald Trump started his executive-order “shock and awe” at the Capital One Arena this evening, signing nine EOs with administration-wide impacts,. The first EO signed by Trump reversed 78 EOs and other directives by Joe Biden. He then left the indoor parade and rally to return to the Oval Office, where Trump issued a pardon for nearly all of the 1500+ January 6 defendants.  Six received commutations instead of pardons:

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As I’m writing this post, Trump is still working through all of the EOs he promised to sign tonight. He’s also taking questions on the fly from reporters in the Oval Office:

When Trump signed the pardon for the J6 “hostages,” he ordered his aides to deliver it ASAP to the Bureau of Prisons. That should prompt their immediate release.

The WSJ reported on the clemency action:

President Trump indicated Monday that he granted full pardons to nearly all defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and commuted the sentence of six. The move delivered on a polarizing campaign pledge to give clemency to supporters who joined in what federal judges and prosecutors have called an attack on American democracy.

Trump issued the pardons within hours of taking the oath of office, using one of the first acts of his second presidential term to grant reprieves to the people who stormed and ransacked the Capitol as Congress convened to certify former President Joe Biden’s victory. The pardons wiped away criminal charges and convictions stemming from what law-enforcement officials have described as the largest investigation in U.S. history.

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A pardon does not wipe the convictions or charges away. A pardon wipes away the legal consequences of convictions, but the convictions stay on the record unless a court later expunges the record. Obviously, a pardon doesn’t give people back the time they lost in prison and defending themselves in court either, a point that Trump himself raised while discussing it with reporters. 

Get ready for a massive release of these prisoners as soon as tonight.

Posted in Republican News

TikTok is Alive…For Now

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Having failed to divest from its Chinese owners, TikTok was supposed to die yesterday. And it did briefly.

TikTok went offline in the United States Saturday night, less than two hours before a ban was slated to go into effect. The extraordinary blackout prevents access to one of the world’s most popular social media apps – one that had been used by 170 million Americans.

Visitors to the app were met with a message reading: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

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But by Sunday afternoon it was back after President-elect Trump indicated he would try to extend the time for a sale.

TikTok restored access for American users midday on Sunday after a whirlwind 14 hours during which the app temporarily shut itself down. TikTok credited Trump for bringing the app back, after he pledged to sign an executive order to delay enforcement of the law that had required the app to spin off from its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned as of Sunday.

“I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Sunday. He added that he would not hold TikTok’s technology partners — including Apple, Google and cloud computing company Oracle — liable for continuing to make the app available until he signed the order.

TikTok certainly seems to have played this right. Their survival in American depends on Trump at the moment so they are praising him for that. 

“As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!,” a pop-up message on Sunday read.

TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Chew, filmed his own thank-you video to Mr. Trump last week, even referring to the president’s personal TikTok account. Mr. Chew has also visited Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and has been invited to sit in a position of honor on the dais at Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

TikTok “will go to any lengths to please the authorities” while facing this ban, said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University and an expert on the global regulation of new technologies.

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Of course serving the government is exactly why the ban was passed in the first place. The concern on both sides of the aisle is that TikTok could be used to benefit the CCP in some way when it needed a boost. Some observers suggested something similar was already happening only with Trump benefiting instead of China.

…after the app was restored, many users expressed frustration at being part of what some called “political theatre” that appeared to be clearly aimed at boosting Trump’s image, although he was the first to try to ban TikTok during his previous administration. Some users questioned whether TikTok shut itself down not to protect its technology partners but so that Trump would look like the app’s savior, as it seeks to secure its future in the United States.

“Did we just get a 16-hour pop up ad for Donald Trump?” one user asked in a post.

Another user said in a video: “Why is everyone thanking Trump for wanting to ‘save’ TikTok when he was the one that put it on the map to be banned in the first place?”

So the company gets a chance to survive (in America) and Trump gets lots of praise on the most popular social media app in the country. But can he really do this? Ultimately it’s not clear how long he can delay the law which was signed last April.

Several prominent Republican lawmakers have indicated they will resist an extension of the law.

“Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said in a joint statement. “For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”

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So it’s really not clear an executive order matters here. Ultimatley, I”m not sure what the point is given that China has refused to allow ByteDance to sell the US subsidiary. If China won’t budget, Trump should let the law take effect. There’s no upside to giving the Chinese a backdoor into American data not to mention a chance to subtly influence domestic politics. 

Posted in Republican News

No Pardon for Mayorkas Or Garland?

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Now, this is interesting: there is no word that Alejandro Mayorkas or Merrick Garland were granted preemptive pardons.

No doubt Garland has some vulnerabilities, but I doubt that he would be high on the list of people who would be targeted for investigations. And as a high-powered lawyer who just ran the Justice Department that would prosecute him, he would likely be treated with kid gloves. 

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But Mayorkas? That man has skeletons and even still-rotting bodies in his closet, and as far as I can tell, Biden has given him no legal cover. He has committed perjury many times before Congress, has been in charge of FEMA and the Secret Service during times of great failure, and opened the borders to all comers, including cartel members, human traffickers, and even terrorists. 

The man has a lot of blood on his hands, and not all of it is due to incompetence. 

Of course, there could be many reasons for Mayorkas’ omission from the list, ranging from a simple refusal of an offer by Biden’s minions to confidence that he has enough dirt on others that he can skate. What I don’t believe is that Mayorkas is clean as the driven snow and as innocent as a baby just out of the womb. 

Generally speaking, most government failures can be explained by simple incompetence, but Mayorkas’ record of failure is too long and too filled with unforgivable and inexplicable acts for them to be attributable solely to incompetence. We know that FEMA had a policy of skipping over Trump supporters while providing aid, that Mayorkas lied repeatedly to Congress about the border being secure, 

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I have, many times, asserted that I believe Mayorkas’ failures were due to malfeasance and not mere misfeasance. In other words, he is evil, not incompetent. 

There are few Biden appointees about whom I feel this, including ones whom I think did terrible jobs. Antony Blinken, for instance, I believe did what he believed to be right. Pete Buttigieg is Alfred E. Newman, not Blowfelt. 

But Mayorkas is a special case. He knew what he was doing, planned to do it, and is pleased by the results. Garland is in that category as well, although I don’t think his motivations were evil but rather driven by revenge. 

Mayorkas is now backpedaling trying to distance himself from his own policies, but I don’t buy it for a second. Mayorkas has been an open borders guy since Obama. 

Homan has it right on this.

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I want Mayorkas dragged before Congress, grilled, and prosecuted for at the very least perjury. 

Posted in Republican News

WSJ: Suddenly, It’s Hip To Be MAGA

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Donald Trump ran on the promise to Make America Great Again, both in 2016 and 2024. He won a narrow Electoral College victory the first time while trailing in the popular vote, and lost both in 2020. This time, however, Trump won both, impressively and decisively.

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Did Trump win because he made conservatism great again, or is it the other way around? The Wall Street Journal reports that it’s suddenly hip to be MAGA, to paraphrase Huey Lewis & The News:

Across many facets of society—in sports, entertainment, the classroom and the workplace—there are signs that MAGA isn’t just retaking the White House. It is gaining a firmer foothold in the broader culture.

Instead of taking a knee to call for social justice, NFL players are doing the “Trump dance” in the end zone at football games. Mainstream entertainers, among them the country singer Carrie Underwood and the rapper Snoop Dogg, agreed to perform at events celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration, something music stars largely shunned eight years ago.

A new generation of Trump-friendly comedians and wellness influencers is populating YouTube and other social media, while a snippet of audio featuring Barron and Melania Trump has become one of the hottest online memes, with celebrities such as Paris Hilton and brands including Frontier Airlines using it in their TikTok and Instagram posts.

“Every time I walk on campus, I see a few MAGA hats. That’s definitely new,” said Carson Carpenter, 19, a senior at Arizona State University. Conservatism, he said, “has really become intertwined in our pop culture…. It’s really showing that conservatism is cool now.”

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This sounds like a chicken-egg argument, but it’s possible that neither really can explain this cultural shift properly. Instead, one has to consider that the inflection point came on July 13 in Butler County, PA:

Looking back at this moment, one can clearly see this as a dividing line in the arc of the election, and possibly the culture as well. Trump’s dramatic gesture in defiance of danger — which he had no way of knowing had been neutralized — galvanized his supporters as well as the entire nation. It may be too glib to claim that Trump won the election at this moment, but it turned out to be the inflection point — both politically and culturally.

Many assumed that would be the case, and the moment was so extraordinary that it was clear it would matter politically. But that wasn’t just true of electoral considerations; Trump made his vitality and vigor clear, as well as his personal courage. That provided a stark contrast to Joe Biden’s decrepitude, which had been displayed on national TV less than three weeks earlier. Less appreciated perhaps is the contrast that it provided to Kamala Harris’ lack of courage in addressing the media or voters after Biden quit the election and Harris got anointed to replace him. Harris didn’t even offer to compete for the spot, instead refusing to put herself at risk of exposure as an empty suit.

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Meanwhile, Trump went back to Butler County. Trump pulled a shift at McDonald’s. He drove a garbage truck, albeit briefly at the behest of his Secret Service detail. He fought. And fought. And fought.

That display of courage and brashness could not help but have a cultural impact, too, because it contrasted with the previous reluctance of Trump supporters to speak up. The Trump dance went viral; MAGA hats appeared; voters put their support out in public much more enthusiastically than ever before. And in fact, Trump became even more popular as well. As of today, Trump is now viewed more favorably than unfavorably in the RCP aggregation for the first time since riding the elevator down to the Trump Towers lobby in 2015. The latest Harvard/Harris poll puts Trump’s favorability at 51/43.

Salena Zito, one of the few reporters in America to accurately report on Trump’s impact over the last ten years, saw it happening before her eyes. The night before Election Day, Zito saw it in a Pittsburgh rally:

If you wanted to have a keen, dispassionate understanding of how much the Republican Party has changed over the past eight years, all you had to do was stand outside the PPG Paints Arena in the city’s Hill District neighborhood and see the line of people stretched 10 blocks in either direction up Fifth Avenue.

The attendees were young, male and female, and diverse. There were black, white, Hispanic, and Asian people all having a great time, getting to know each other, singing songs in line, swapping stories of where they were from, and almost always finding out they shared a mutual friend.

Inside the arena, one could witness the emergence of a new coalition of Republican voters: union workers, nurses, janitors, businessmen and women, doctors, lawyers, police officers, and college students of every race and generation.

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What happened? A diverse coalition of American voters rejected the extremism of the ruling elite clique — as well as their propaganda about the existential danger that Trump supposedly fronted. And now that same bankrupt elite clique have spent the last ten weeks trying to suck up to Trump, providing even more evidence of their political and moral bankruptcy — while Trump keeps fighting. 

Christian Toto and I will discuss this more in our Off the Beaten Path episode tomorrow. 

Posted in Republican News

CNBC Is Interesting This Afternoon

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I’d almost say they’re torn between their sad-sack antecedents and a sense of…dare I say it? Irrational exuberance at the thought of what’s possible.

Their live updates coverage of the inauguration has a headline link is flat-out hilarious when you just read it on its face.

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I mean, think about it – ‘Matter of fact, we’re gonna rename a whole body of water and, oh – and colonize Mars.’ That’s what the whoever was updating the network thought the main takeaways from his inaugural address.

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The inside column headline reads:

Trump inauguration live updates: New president vows to retake Panama Canal, plant flag on Mars

That’s all they got out of it.

It’s just a hoot. Only Trump, man.

Only Trump.

In the stream of story snippets, they did notice Trump didn’t have his hand on the Bibles Melania was holding. Scandal.

Trump did not place his hand on a Bible as he took the oath of office.

It is traditional for presidents to have their left palm resting on a Bible when they are sworn in.

Trump, instead, had his left hand at his side, with his right hand raised, as he took the oath, with Melania Trump standing at his side holding two Bibles.

And that the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) had scrapped Mayorkas’s app for setting your own asylum appointments. Obviously the author is confused why such a move was necessary when the border has practically cured itself.

The crackdown comes as illegal entries have declined sharply during Biden’s final year in office. Weeks earlier, the CBP said that encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border in November were down 76% from a year earlier.

They’re really not into the ‘Trump is president’ thing yet or even really how he got reelected to begin with. 

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All the networks know is that the hombre naranja es muy malo.

Media never remembers to check with Americans, who, it turns out, were pissed off enough at being lied to and manipulated. They finally put their collective foot down and yanked that lever for ‘ no more.’

I believe Americans, whatever and however much weeping, will be relieved this is happening immediately.

Independent CNBC stories are a totally different tenor than the inauguration play-by-play.

Shoot, yeah – they even quote a billionaire who uses my ‘giddy‘ to describe what business feels like!

Stanley Druckenmiller says ‘animal spirits’ are back in markets because of Trump with CEOs ‘giddy’

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller believes Donald Trump’s re-election renewed a jolt of speculative enthusiasm in the markets and surging optimism within businesses.

“I’ve been doing this for 49 years, and we’re probably going from the most anti-business administration to the opposite,” Druckenmiller said on CNBC Monday. “We do a lot of talking to CEOs and companies on the ground. And I’d say CEOs are somewhere between relieved and giddy. So we’re a believer in animal spirits.”

While the notable investor, who now runs Duquesne Family Office, is bullish on the economy in the near-term, he remains somewhat cautious on the stock market because of elevated bond yields. He revealed that he is holding onto his short against Treasurys, effectively betting that bond prices will fall and yields will rise.

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The market was closed for the Martin Luther King holiday, but Dow futures were up on the inauguration being completed successfully – done deal.

Interestingly enough, there’s also a note that my favorite group of eat-the-bug bazillionaire Malthusians are poised to gather once again for their WEF conclave in Davos this week. But it seems it’s not the hot ticket it was.

Is interest naturally waning, or is it the same public and fiduciary pressure that’s causing banks and investment funds – who are many Davos’ most glittering attendees – to remove themselves from ESG and financial climate cabals?

Supposedly, Trump will address the gathering by video link on Thursday. That should be an interesting little chat.

But they are going to be bereft of the majority of the most devoted climate cult heads of state who usually make up the WEF’s legitimacy factor and carry out the puppetmasters’ edict when the private planes and helos leave.

Only a wounded, chancellor-in-name-only Olaf Scholz will be attending, and, frankly…who cares? He probably wants one more shot at the dinner buffets while he can.

…While Donald Trump, who is being inaugurated as U.S. president on Monday, is expected to address the forum via live video link on Thursday, a number of key leaders will be completely absent from the event.

These include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s leader Giorgia Meloni and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations — which includes the U.S., Europe’s biggest economies, Canada and Japan — the only head of state attending the summit in person is outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

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 Pretty much sounds like the influential party’s over.

Why do I hear a Monty Python-ish voice in my head, ‘Oooo! Prime minister of Spain – very nice, Very nice! There’s some lovely filth over here, Dennis!‘

…“The leaders of Brazil, of China, of India, who gave the keynote speeches 10 years ago, are not there now. Russia has not been welcomed for some years now, Keir Starmer is not going to be there. Macron’s not going to be there,” Jan Aart Scholte, professor of global transformations and governance challenges at Leiden University, told CNBC Thursday.

“True, the prime minister of Spain is going to be there and there are a couple of others, but the general picture of the heads of state, of government that are there is that it’s not the big players. I think if you went through a list of the G20, it’s going to be a small minority [who are attending],” he said.

Is it the Trump effect again or a combination of that – which, honestly, has to be a factor – and the world turning against the entire WEF vision of world planning?

I think it could well be both.

The wake-up call for these folks will last for quite a while, as, I believe, will our giddy. 

Posted in Republican News

Reactions to Biden’s Last Minute Pardons of His Family

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This morning Joe Biden issued blanket pardons to Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and members of the House J6 Committee. However, that was not the end of it. Just as the inauguration ceremony was getting started, we learned that he had also issued a final round of preemptive pardons for members of his own family.

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Biden issued a statement explaining his decision.

“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me — the worst kind of partisan politics,” he said in his last statement as president. “Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end.”

Mr. Biden’s action pardoned James B. Biden, his brother; Sara Jones Biden, James’s wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Mr. Biden’s sister; John T. Owens, Ms. Owens’s husband; and Francis W. Biden, Mr. Biden’s brother.

The White House announced the pardons with less than 20 minutes left in Mr. Biden’s presidency, after he had already walked into the Capitol Rotunda to witness the swearing-in of Mr. Trump before leaving the Capitol for the last time as president.

The media is, of course, treating this very differently than when Trump pardoned people connected to his administration.

There were reactions from people right, left and center suggesting these last minute pardons undermine Biden’s claims about the importance of norms and his trust in the system.

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Whatever happened to Joe Biden restoring and protecting norms?

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The White House has been hinting for weeks that some last minute pardons were happening, but the decision to wait until the inauguration was underway to annouce this is impossible to explain apart from an obvious desire to hide this until Biden was off the public stage.

Posted in Republican News

Recall Mark Milley to Service And Humiliate Him; UPDATE: Milley Portrait Gone From Pentagon

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All of Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons for the worst political malefactors in recent years are an insult to the rule of law, but one in particular sticks in my craw: Mark Milley. 

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Why? 

I expect bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci to be ass-covering snakes with a lust for power and disdain for accountability, and I am confident that he will burn in hell and be remembered as the mass murderer that he is. 

I expect politicians like Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, and the scumbags of the January 6th Committee to be liars who would sacrifice their souls for an extra minute on TV and an additional campaign dollar. 

But I DON’T expect our military officers to betray their country and pledge to our adversaries that he has their backs, and that is what General Mark Milley did when he called his counterpart in China behind the back of the President of the United States.

Most of Biden’s pardons are merely disgraceful and harmful to the rule of law–par for the course when it comes to Joe Biden, who has done more damage to the presidency than anybody in my lifetime. 

But the pardon of Milley is something special: it is an attack on the very foundational principle of civilian control over the military. 

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We take military subservience to civilian authority for granted, but that is only because that is how it has always been in the United States and the West. It is a tradition. A norm. An expectation. And a matter of honor. 

After all, not to put too fine a point on it, the military has the guns. A platoon of soldiers could easily overpower the president, his administration, and Congress if they were unopposed by others in the military. Biden liked to mock civilians’ Second Amendment rights by reminding us that he had control over F-16s. 

Actually, when Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs, HE had more direct control over the F-16s. 

Milley broke the chain of command, which was unforgivable. Yet Biden pardoned him because he defied Biden’s arch nemesis, Donald Trump. Biden, now a former president, endorsed a military officer disobeying the will of the President of the United States as long as that president didn’t obey the transnationalists’ creed. 

Can Milley still be Court Martialed? I don’t know. I am not a legal scholar. 

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But I am 99.9999% certain that Trump can recall him to active duty and order him to sweep the floors, be based in Nome, Alaska, or perhaps guard some armory in the middle of nowhere. 

Maybe Trump can bust him down to private and make him clean latrines at some base in the middle of the desert after his time in Nome. Whatever duty he is given, it should be the dirtiest, nastiest, and most humiliating possible. 

I don’t care if Milley is jailed. But I think he needs to be held accountable and be shamed for eternity. This isn’t just about revenge–as Trump said, victory is his retribution–but pour encourager les autres.

UPDATE: PORTRAIT OF MARK MILLEY REMOVED FROM PENTAGON

Posted in Republican News