How else could you explain an “invisible” sculpture that recently sold for over $18,000? Price is guided by scarcity and subjective valuation—not by the cost of raw materials and labor or objective truth. Sculpturist Jeff Koons broke a record several years ago selling a rabbit statue made of stainless steel for $91 million. If you broke down his creation into scrap, it’d be worth a few feet of train track....
Called Membership Miles, the program will allow AmEx cardholders to earn frequent-flier points on seven different domestic airlines and 24 affiliate carriers. Points can also be credited toward travel packages and a changing roster of activities it calls “once-in-a-lifetime experiences.” (Among the first such offerings are a stay at a medieval castle and tennis lessons with champ Ivan Lendl.) AmEx will award one credit for every dollar a cardholder spends - using any of five varieties of AmEx cards, including the Optima and the small-business Corporate Card....
Reaching the halfway point of a crucial 10-game homestand on Tuesday night, New York won for the fourth time in five tries, and the eighth time in their last 10 games overall. The victory over the Marlins snapped New York’s tie with Miami for second place in the National League East and forged a new tie with the Pirates, 2 1/2 games behind the Cardinals in the race for the second wild-card spot....
Olivia Troye, who served as Pence’s homeland security advisor, said she was baffled to see some Republican figures still “pandering” to Trump after his treatment of Pence in the final days of their time at the White House. Trump turned on Pence after the formerly loyal deputy reportedly refused to help his bid to overturn the presidential election results. Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday, Troye was asked whether Republicans would stand by Pence if he criticized the former president....
The president noted that he was optimistic about the future, saying that now was a time for “tremendous hope and joy.” However he cautioned that to “embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers… and they want to see us do badly.” “These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives,” Trump said....
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said on the call that pro sports leagues would “love to lead the way” in boosting a struggling economy once public health officials give the “all clear” for seasons to resume, according to the ESPN report. Deputy White House Press Secretary Judd Deere confirmed the call took place but did not reveal any additional details about what Trump and the commissioners discussed. MORE: Mike Francesa delivers takedown of Trump on coronavirus response...
Trump has made baseless claims that he won a second term as president and accused Democrats of “rigging” the election in Biden’s favor via widespread fraud. Most legal efforts to overturn the results of the election have been unsuccessful. Distributing the COVID-19 vaccines is expected to begin later in December, with a majority of Americans not being able to obtain the vaccine until 2021. When asked by a reporter why members of the incoming administration were not invited to the Tuesday event, Trump implied that the next president had not yet been chosen....
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was the latest witness to appear before cameras. She was questioned by lawmakers in a committee room today, two days after the State Department official George Kent and the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine Bill Taylor gave testimony to representatives. Another raft of witnesses is also due to appear at public hearings next week—including U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council staffer....
“Few Republicans have as much COURAGE and FIGHT as Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks,” Trump said in an official statement. The former GOP president described Brooks as a “great Conservative Republican leader.” “Mo Brooks has my Complete and Total Endorsement for the U.S. Senate representing the Great State of Alabama. He will never let you down!” Trump said. The Alabama congressman, 66, is running to replace retiring GOP Senator Richard Shelby, 86, for what is viewed as a safely Republican seat....
While Republicans will likely win control of the House, they will do so having won nowhere near the 60 seats Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy had predicted and well below the 28-seat average the party out of power traditionally gains in midterms. The razor-thin four- to eight-seat majority Republicans will have in the next Congress is the smallest Republican majority in recent history. And in the Senate, once all the votes are counted in Nevada and Arizona, Democrats appear well positioned to keep control of the chamber, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming Georgia runoff....
In his Sunday speech, Trump claimed migrants will enter the U.S. “by the hundreds of thousands, by the millions” under the current administration. Trump said, “The Biden administration is now actively expediting the admission of illegal migrants, enabling them to lodge frivolous asylum claims and admitting them by the thousands and thousands and thousands a day, crowded together, in unsanitary conditions despite the ongoing economic and public health crisis, COVID-19, or as I call it, the ‘China virus....
There are outstanding questions about whether a president has the power to self-pardon as no precedent exists, if such a pardon could be overturned and whether it would indicate guilt on his part. On Thursday, CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp weighed in, saying pardon power should be reformed and Trump granting himself clemency would make him look guilty. “If the president has designs on running again for president, this would certainly imperil that, and I would think encourage other justice departments to really look at what he had done while in office if he is tacitly admitting he needed to be pardoned for stuff,” Cupp said....
Trump first mentioned Ponder in his remarks on the National Day of Prayer on May 3, 2018, highlighting Ponder’s conversion to Christianity while in solitary confinement. While confined, Ponder read the Bible and listened to the now-deceased Reverend Billy Graham on the radio. At the time, Trump called Ponder “a living testament to the power of prayer,” and a reminder “that prayer changes hearts and transforms lives.” On February 20, Trump hinted at possibly granting Ponder a pardon while making remarks at a Hope for Prisoners graduation ceremony in Nevada....
Trump personally guaranteed the loans, CNBC reported, citing an unnamed person with “knowledge of the matter.” That means if Trump defaults, Deutsche Bank could seize the golf courses and hotels secured by the mortgages and sell them to recover any debt due. If the value of Trump’s business assets is not enough to repay the debt, Deutsche Bank could go after Trump’s personal holdings. Deutsche Bank declined to comment for this story....
The prospective deal for the Fox TV broadcast, which would be orchestrated by his 2020 re-election campaign, could cost in the neighborhood of $5.6 million for 30 seconds of airtime. That would likely exceed the cost of any other campaign ad he has purchased so far, though he reportedly paid seven figures for a World Series ad last month. A deal has not yet been completed and negotiations are still ongoing, according to the SBJ report....
–Ronald Reagan Nearly 30 years after the end of Ronald Reagan’s presence in American foreign policy, President Donald Trump has once again showed this past week with his spontaneous “step” into North Korea to meet with Kim Jong-un, that the ideas of the great communist dragon-slayer are alive and well inside his administration. The president shocked the world, and undoubtedly shocked Kim himself, when following the G20 Summit, and while preparing to visit the DMZ with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, he took to Twitter to invite Kim to meet him at the border for a “handshake....
Trump made his comment during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity broadcast from Mar-a-Lago on Monday night. Hannity asked Trump his thoughts about Georgia’s recently passed voting law, which has been criticized by Democrats as racist and anti-democratic. “Florida, Ohio, all of the states that we won, were properly run,” Trump said, claiming that all red states in the 2020 election had “properly run” their elections with enough safeguards against fraud....
President Joe Biden underwent a physical examination on November 19 by his doctor Kevin O’Connor, who declared him fit for duty. However, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said that “as far as we know” Biden did not undergo a test of his mental abilities, referring to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which is a screening test for memory loss and dementia. During an interview on Tuesday, Fox News anchor Sean Hannity referred to how the former president’s physician Ronny Jackson had said Trump had passed that test....
In a lengthy statement dated February 15, the former president hit out at New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—who are both Black—after accounting firm Mazars announced they will no longer be working with the Trump Organization as a decade’s worth of financial statements cannot be “relied upon.” The statements of financial condition from June 30, 2011 to June 30, 2020, which Mazars have essentially withdrawn, are a key part of James’ probe into allegations that Trump, as well as his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr....
Trump also appeared to criticize the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Hur, who is tasked with investigating the discovery of classified documents at President Joe Biden’s former office and his home in Delaware. “What Biden did was wrong, but he was given a reasonable and stable Special Counsel who is sane, inclined not to make waves, friendly with RINOS, and is not known as a flame-throwing lunatic or a Biden hater,” the former president wrote on his Truth Social platform....
