PUS (President of the United States) DONALD TRUMP

Huge day for now the 47th President of the United States (PUS47) Donald Trump. Before leaving office, outgoing President Joe Biden thumbed his nose at Trump by pardoning a whole host of people:

Liz Cheney and all the other members of the House Special Committee on the 6January2021 coup attempt, plus their staff and selected people who testified.
Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Anthony Fauci, who ran afoul of Trump's irrationality.
There were a few others.
Hunter Biden of course was already pardoned in December.

You know how Trump likes to exaggerate reality, as for example his statement at his first Inauguration, where he said he had the the all-time-largest crowd? Nope. Trump drew 600,000 people. President Barack Obama's first Inauguration had 1.8 million. Well, this second time, his ceremony will be among the smallest ever, for it was done indoors in the Capitol Rotunda.

Veep JD Vance joked that he would skip the Inauguration to instead attend the Ohio-State Notre college championship game. 7:30PM ET on ESPN. He graduated from Ohio State. Of course JD was in the Rotunda. So was Trump son Barron, who stands tall at 6 feet 7 inches. That hat worn by Melania was designed by Eric Javits.

Who are the oligarchs with Trump? At the inaugural lunch today of Chesapeake crab. angus ribeye steak, and apple ice box terrine with sour cream ice cream, with wine:

Apple CEO Tim Cook is seated next to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Also at the table are the President’s son Donald Trump Jr. and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is sitting next to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, days after the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to uphold a ban on TikTok unless the company changes its ownership structure—a move that could benefit Meta.
Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos is seated next to Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Also at their table: Sen. Marco Rubio, who was nominated for Secretary of State, and the President’s son Barron Trump.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is seated at a table with Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for the Treasury Department, and Eric and Lara Trump, Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barasso, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton declined their invitations.

How was the weather today? Not that bad, actually, with a high of 21F at noon, nice sunshine, with some wind making the wind chill uncomfortable. Even the parade was mostly cancelled, with many of the bands and groups sent to the Capitol One Arena.

Also in the Capitol One Arena, President Trump is soon expected to sign as many as a hundred executive orders.

Will pardon a number of January 6 U.S. Capitol attackers, but how many?
Certainly something on immigration, more specifically his mass deportation plan and renew building his south wall.
Will ease burdens on oil and natural gas production.
Will roll back Biden's electric vehicle mandate.
Will roll back protections for transgender people.
Will establish a new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk (was that a Nazi salute?). Vivek Ramaswamy has apparently dropped out to run for office, like maybe governor of Ohio.
Will give Tiktok some time to work out a deal to stay in business.
Could well again withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
Will declare Central and South American drug cartels as global terrorists.
Looks like his tariff plan on China, Mexico, Canada and other countries might await a later date.
Will he today sign an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America, and Mount Denali back to becoming Mount McKinley?
Or announce an end of the Ukraine-Russia War. And if not, at least his plan.
If it's true that he will sign up to 100 documents, there will be others.

But before those signings. The inaugural parade, indoors.

Tropical Cyclone Sean is moving along the west coast of Australia, and was today up to 130 MPH. However, a weakening is expected over the next few days, with probably no landfall.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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