Bill Gates and President-elect Donald Trump may seem like an unlikely duo, but their recent three-hour dinner proved to be an engaging and unexpected meeting of minds. Gates, who had backed Kamala Harris, opened up about their private conversation, which covered everything from global health issues to driving innovation, to complex algorithmic large language models.


"I did an analysis using a malleable logarithmic of the ways that past POTUS have managed their ways of getting their policies across, and my data shows that president elect Trump shows a very high degree of what we in the tech industry call Technical comprehension characteristic innovation.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/bill-gates-spills-the-beans-on-intriguing-3-hour-dinner-chat-with-trump-i-was-impressed-101737158779211.html

Donald Trump Launches $TRUMP Meme Coin—Token Hits $9 Billion Market Cap
A new meme coin launched by President-elect Donald Trump on Friday has a market capitalization of about $9 billion—after hitting a peak of over $15 billion early Sunday—marking Trump’s latest venture into cryptocurrency and merchandise sales in the lead-up to his inauguration.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2025/01/19/donald-trump-launches-trump-meme-coin-token-exceeds-12-billion-market-cap/

Feds offered Epstein a plea deal for dirt on Trump.
“He said, ‘They told me they’d let me plead out something small, and I’ll do just a couple of years in a camp, if I can give them something on Trump to get him impeached.’

“He says, but the government told me I don’t have to prove what I say about Trump, as long as Trump’s people can’t disprove it,”
Epstein apparently had nothing, but considered “making stuff up” to save his skin.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/18/us-news/feds-offered-jeffrey-epstein-a-deal-for-dirt-on-trump-ex-cellmate/
Feds offered Jeffrey Epstein a deal for incriminating dirt on Trump, ex-cellmate says

Jeffrey Epstein was offered a sweetheart plea deal by federal prosecutors in return for incriminating information that would lead to President Trump’s impeachment, according to the late pedophile’s cellmate.

Ex cop and convicted killer Nicholas Tartaglione, Epstein’s bunkmate at the Correctional Center in Manhattan weeks before his death in August 2019, said the disgraced financier dished on the dirt-digging expedition after a confab with the feds.

“He said, ‘When you were a cop, what do you know about proffers and cooperating?’ I said, ‘Jeff, it’s pretty simple, the prosecutors, they caught a fish — you. They’re not gonna let that fish off the hook unless you give them a bigger fish,'” recalled Tartaglione in a call with Jessica Reed Kraus, a California-based self-described journalist who recorded the conversation and later posted it to her Substack.

“He said, ‘Yeah, well, that’s what they said. He said, ‘They told me they’d let me plead out something small, and I’ll do just a couple of years in a camp, if I can give them something on Trump to get him impeached.’

“He says, but the government told me I don’t have to prove what I say about Trump, as long as Trump’s people can’t disprove it,” Tartaglione said Epstein considered “making stuff up” to save his skin.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/biden-issues-preemptive-pardons-for-milley-fauci-jan-6-panel-members-and-police-officers/ar-AA1xw64p

WASHINGTON — With just a few hours remaining in office, President Joe Biden issued a slew of pardons Monday morning to preemptively protect people President-elect Donald Trump had threatened.

Biden pardoned former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, members and staff on the committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before that committee.

https://www.npr.org/2025/01/20/nx-s1-5268286/elon-musk-news-site-popular-information

News organizations are grappling with how to cover the overwhelming pace of news expected from the return to power of President-elect Donald Trump later today. The lawyer and investigative journalist Judd Legum, founder of the liberal site Popular Information, thinks he has the answer: focus like a laser on Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.

Legum says there will be two issues a week of his publication on Substack, to be called "Musk Watch"; one issue will be dedicated to a deep dive or scoops about Elon Musk, and a second aggregating the reporting of others to capture Musk's actions and activities.

He's hired Caleb Ecarma, formerly a political reporter for Vanity Fair, and hopes to hire more to cover Musk, the chief of SpaceX and Tesla, owner of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), and now the head of DOGE, a new task force charged with advising Trump on how to radically reorder the federal government.

"I think that he has an unprecedented combination of wealth, of influence across major industries, and of political influence," Legum tells NPR. "We really don't know what the implications of one person having so much influence over a breadth of different areas will be."

Legum says there should be plenty to write about.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-inauguration-capitol-rotunda-cold-weather-2e527b4f40309be7fd2b48a8173af390

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office from inside the Capitol Rotunda on Monday due to forecasts of intense cold weather, upending months of meticulous planning for a massive outdoor event with crowds sprawling down the National Mall.

“The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way.”

The Rotunda is prepared as an alternative for each inauguration in the event of inclement weather. The swearing-in was last moved indoors in 1985, when President Ronald Reagan began his second term. Monday’s forecast calls for the lowest Inauguration Day temperatures since that day.

Outgoing President Joe Biden, members of Congress and some other dignitaries and notable guests will be able to view the ceremony from inside the Capitol Rotunda. But even if they are standing shoulder-to-shoulder packing the Rotunda as in 1985, many will be forced to watch the swearing-in from elsewhere.

Alternate plans were being devised to accommodate as many guests as possible. More than 250,000 guests are ticketed to view the inauguration from around the Capitol grounds and tens of thousands more were expected to be in general admission areas or to line the inaugural parade route from the Capitol to the White House.

Trump said some supporters would be able to watch the ceremony from Washington’s Capital One Arena on Monday, a day after he plans to hold a rally there. He said he would visit the arena, which has a capacity of about 20,000, after his swearing-in, and host a modified inaugural parade there.

Trumps already starting his legacy of not doing shit that he said he was going to do, untarnished by victory

https://www.rawstory.com/mike-johnson-2670895354/

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had vowed to raise flags at the United States Capitol building to full staff for Donald Trump's inauguration.

However, the Wall Street Journal's Olivia Beavers brings word that this plan has hit a bit of a snag as "the cords are frozen" on the flagpoles due to cold temperatures, thus making raising the flags more difficult than initially expected.

The flags were lowered to mourn the passing of former President Jimmy Carter, who died late last year at age 100.

However, after Trump complained about the optics of flags being lowered to half staff during his second inauguration, Johnson announced that he would be returning them to full staff on January 20th.

As of this writing, the current temperature in Washington D.C. is just 24 degrees and Trump last week decided to move his inauguration indoors to avoid being exposed to frigid temperatures.

1. Peace deal in Israel on Saturday (US time, but Sunday in Israel), Neo-Nazi socialists imploding
2. TikTok shuts down on Sunday, Neo-Nazi socialists imploding
<<YOU ARE HERE>>
3. Trump is inaugurated on Monday, Neo-Nazi socialists imploding
4. US debt ceiling will be breached on Tuesday, Neo-Nazi socialists imploding
5. Deportations expected to begin on Wednesday, Neo-Nazi socialists imploding
6. Neo-Nazi socialists imploding continues on a rolling daily basis for the foreseeable future.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/01/18/tiktok-ban-live-updates-app-shuts-down-in-us-but-trump-could-restore-it/
TikTok Ban Live Updates: App Shuts Down In US

TikTok abruptly shut itself down to U.S. users late Saturday night, minutes before a nationwide ban took effect—but President-elect Donald Trump said hours earlier he will “most likely” allow TikTok to return when he takes office Monday by extending a deadline for China-based owner ByteDance to sell the app. (Here’s more on TikTok’s shutdown.)

January 19, 2025A nationwide ban on TikTok took effect, formally barring internet service providers and app stores from offering the ultra-popular social media platform.

January 18, 2025TikTok shut itself down in the United States at some point before 11 p.m. EST, greeting American users with a message that said “you can’t use TikTok for now” due to a “law banning TikTok” set to take effect Sunday—but the platform noted Trump “has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” (Read more here.)

January 18, 2025Trump signaled he would “most likely” issue a 90-day extension on the TikTok ban, saying an announcement would “probably” come Monday, though he did not definitively say whether he would do so.

January 17, 2025TikTok said in a statement its service will “be forced to go dark” on Jan. 19 unless TikTok “should remain available to Americans” if “under American ownership”

https://ground.news/article/a-9-year-old-came-to-arizona-to-get-a-trump-tattoo-heres-what-happened

A defeat for Chuds. Don't let them bury it.

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/moana-2-1-billion-global-box-office-1236272527/

“Moana 2,” originally conceived as a television show for streaming, is officially a billion-dollar box office smash.

The animated sequel has generated $445 million domestically and $567 million internationally, bringing its grand total to $1.009 billion globally after eight weekends of release. “Moana 2” is Disney‘s third 2024 release to join the billion-dollar club following “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” capping off a stellar 12 months for the film studio. None of its rivals fielded a single $1 billion release in 2024, though Universal was closest with “Despicable Me 4” ($969 million).

“Moana 2” opened on Nov. 28 and cemented a Thanksgiving box office record with $225 million over the five-day holiday frame, obliterating the previous benchmark set by 2019’s “Frozen II” with $125 million. Despite mixed critical reviews, the film benefitted from positive word-of-mouth among moviegoers and remained in the top five on domestic charts for seven consecutive weekends. Now it its eighth frame, “Moana 2” landed at No. 6 with $6.1 million over the weekend and $8.4 million over the extended Martin Luther King Jr. holiday stretch.