>>22079590

What do you wanna call it then?

>>22079604

You know what I mean though. I can smite my enemies with my mind and shit.

PICTURED: Moment Michelle Obama's idyllic Parisian river cruise turns sour as the former First Lady and other revelers realize Notre Dame is on fire

Michelle Obama was spotted on an idyllic dinner cruise in Paris when she and the other guests learned that the nearby Notre Dame Cathedral had gone up in flames.

The former first lady boarded the boat with her fellow passengers just across from the Eiffel Tower on Monday evening and set off along the Seine River.

Mrs Obama was pictured smiling and sipping wine as she mingled with other guests on the roof of the luxury boat as they cruised past the iconic monuments of Paris.

But their mood changed considerably soon after when news filtered through that the nearby 800-year-old cathedral was on fire.

At one point, Mrs Obama was pictured staring intently at a fellow passenger's phone with an increasingly concerned look on her face.

The fire broke out at about 6.30pm when Notre Dame had closed to the public for the evening.

Plumes of smoke quickly billowed from the cathedral and could be seen across much of Paris.

As the fire unfolded, the captain of the boat opted to tweak the route of the cruise.

The dinner, prepared by famous French-born chef Alain Ducasse, went ahead as planned.

Mrs Obama, who was in Paris for her Becoming book tour, later took to social media to say her 'heart aches with the people of France'.

She shared an old photo on Instagram of herself, her husband Barack and their two daughters lighting candles in the cathedral.

'I will never forget the first time I walked into the Notre Dame Cathedral. I was a teenager on a school trip to Paris. It was my very first international trip, and until then, I hadn't seen much outside of the South Side neighborhood I grew up in,' she wrote.

'But the majesty of Notre Dame - the history, the artistry, the spirituality - took my breath away. The feeling was almost indescribable - a place that lifts you to a higher understanding of who we are and who we can be. Every time I've visited in the years since, including as First Lady, I felt the same thing.

'So being here in Paris tonight, my heart aches with the people of France. Yet I know that the Notre Dame I experienced all those years ago, as so many others have over the centuries, will soon awe us again.'

Her husband Barack also tweeted: 'Notre Dame is one of the world's great treasures, and we're thinking of the people of France in your time of grief.'

More than 400 firemen were needed to tame the inferno that consumed the roof and collapsed the spire of the gothic masterpiece on Monday night.

The fire swiftly ripped through the cathedral's oak roof supports, where workmen had been carrying out extensive renovations to the spire's timber-framed supports.

Hundreds of stunned onlookers had lined the banks of the river Seine late into the night, reciting prayers and singing as they stood in vigil while the fire raged.

Firefighters worked through the night and finally quelled the blaze some 14 hours after it began.

Authorities said they suspected the fire was caused by accident.

On Tuesday, firefighters examined the facade with its spectacular 10-metre filigreed stained-glass rose window still intact.

From the outside, the imposing bell towers and outer walls stood firm but the insides and the upper structure had been eviscerated.

Investigators will not be able to enter the cathedral's blackened nave until experts are satisfied its walls withstood the heat and the building is structurally sound.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6928937/Michelle-Obama-Paris-cruise-Notre-Dame-caught-fire.html

Sky News: Exclusive interview with President Zelenskyy talking Putin, NATO and Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ_5ynKyB4E

Zelensky: I will end Ukraine war ‘quickly’ in exchange for NATO membership

https://www.the-sun.com/news/12994749/zelensky-russia-ukraine-war-peace/

Justin Trudeau arrives in Mar-a-Lago.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1862636521196576993

Ghislaine Maxwell situation report

Ghislaine Maxwell has been left ‘starving’ this Thanksgiving after the jail where she is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking ‘ran out of money’.

Sources say convicted madam Maxwell, 62, and other inmates at FCI Tallahassee in Florida are ‘going hungry’ because of the lack of food.

One source said: ‘This has been going on since last week. The inmates have been told the Bureau of Prisons has run out of money and Ghislaine and the others have been left starving.

‘Portion sizes have been cut from 8oz to 2oz and Ghislaine hasn’t had food for five days. The prison says it can’t afford to buy the vegetarian diet plan she is on. She and the others are going hungry.’

Prisoners have been told there is ‘no money for medication’.

Another person familiar with the situation said: ‘The prisoners who need medication, everything from chemotherapy drugs to blood pressure medication, were pulled to one side and told there isn’t money for the drugs.

‘It’s insane.’

Maxwell this week lost the latest round of her appeal against her December 2021 conviction for her role in sexually abusing multiple minor girls alongside ex-boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

The former socialite and close friend of Prince Andrew’s was convicted of luring girls as young as 14 into Epstein’s clutches.

She has always vehemently denied the charges and continued to deny them in a jailhouse interview with international journalist Daphne Barak for The Mail on Sunday.

Maxwell told Barak that meeting Epstein was ‘the greatest mistake of my life’ adding: ‘I didn’t know that he was so awful. I mean, obviously now, looking back with hindsight, of course.

‘But at the time, I mean he had lots of friends. He was friendly with just about everybody you could imagine. There was no reason to imagine that he was someone who was capable of evil.’

Her lawyers are planning to appeal her case all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Epstein, a convicted pedophile, killed himself in a New York jail in 2019 after being arrested on multiple child sex charges.

A source said: ‘People have no sympathy for prisoners but there is a difference between an inmate serving time for a crime and being inhumanely punished. What is going on in Tallahassee is inhumane.’

A Department of Justice report last year was scathing about conditions inside the Tallahassee prison which was found to have moldy food, rat droppings and rotten vegetables.

Prison inspectors described conditions as ‘alarming’ with prisoners resorting to using feminine hygiene products to plug leaks in ceilings and windows.

The 49-page December 2023 report said: ‘We observed moldy bread being served as well as discolored and rotting vegetables in a food preparation refrigerator at the female prison. In the food storage warehouses, we found likely evidence of rodent droppings, as well as bags of cereal with insects in them and warped food containers.

‘We also found that female housing unit roofs routinely leak and that all five general population housing unit roofs need to be replaced. Many female inmates live in housing units in which water frequently leaks from ceilings and windows on or near their living spaces.

'We observed housing areas in which feminine hygiene products were being used to absorb water from leaking windows.’

Last night, the Federal Bureau of Prisons refused to comment.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14138279/Florida-Ghislaine-Maxwell-vegan-Thanksgiving-Tallahassee-prison.html

Origins: The DJT Shimmy

https://x.com/_johnnymaga/status/1862493015954051112

Musk, Ramaswamy to discuss DOGE with GOP leaders on Capitol Hill Dec. 5

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will visit Capitol Hill to discuss government reform with Republican congressional leaders Dec. 5, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced Wednesday.

Johnson said the entrepreneurs will “discuss major reform ideas to achieve regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings” with GOP lawmakers.

President-elect Donald Trump has named Musk and Ramaswamy co-chairs of a new outside advisory commission they have dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. While details about the panel are still emerging, it appears that it would serve mainly to consult the White House Office of Management and Budget, which prepares the president’s annual budget request to Congress.

Musk and Ramaswamy have laid out a sweeping set of goals for the project, including massive cuts to the federal workforce and the closure of numerous federal agencies and regulators.

They want to eliminate “expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress,” they wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. They would also seek to cut federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, several international organizations and the women’s health-care provider Planned Parenthood.

On Wednesday, Musk also suggested the White House should “delete” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent agency.

The lion’s share of these proposals would require congressional approval, however, because the House controls the appropriation of federal funds to agencies.

Next week’s planned meeting is the latest indication that Republican leaders in Congress are taking Musk and Ramaswamy seriously.

Yet, even the best efforts of Republican leaders in Congress may not be enough to enact many of these ideas.

With the results of a few House races still outstanding as of Wednesday, Johnson is nonetheless on track to preside over one of the narrowest majorities, of either party, in several decades.

Given how widely dispersed the federal workforce is across the country’s 435 congressional districts, the prospect of putting any one district’s federal employees out of work would likely face opposition from that district’s representatives in Congress.

Spokespeople for Johnson and Musk did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment on Wednesday.

Musk is the world’s wealthiest person, and head of SpaceX, Tesla and the social media platform X. Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, is a former Republican candidate for president.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/27/musk-ramaswamy-doge-gop-leaders-on-capitol-hill-.html

Bitcoin heads for nearly 40% November gain as it edges closer to $100,000

The price of bitcoin is tracking for one of its best months of the year after former President Donald Trump’s election victory catapulted the flagship cryptocurrency to new records consistently throughout the month.

Bitcoin is on pace to post a 38% gain for November, according to Coin Metrics, which would make the month its best since February, when it gained 45% following the launch of spot bitcoin ETFs. That was also ahead of its first new record of the year since November 2021.

On an intraday basis, bitcoin was last higher by more than 2% at $97,081.81. Earlier, it traded as high as $98,722.00. Coinbase

fell 4.75%, while bitcoin proxies MicroStrategy

and Mara Holdings

gained 0.67% and 1.86%, respectively.

Investors in November were pricing in Trump’s second presidency. During his re-election campaign this year, he pitched himself to Americans as the candidate who would bring the crypto industry out of a dark period defined for many by the absence of clear digital assets regulation and the regulation-by-enforcement approach the Securities and Exchange Commission, under Chair Gary Gensler, has taken toward crypto businesses.

Trump’s victory sent bitcoin rallying to as high as just a couple hundred dollars shy of the highly anticipated $100,000 milestone. While another Trump term is expected to add another layer of legitimacy to the young crypto industry, it also serves as a macro catalyst, implying larger budget deficits, potentially more inflation and changes to the international role of the dollar — all things that would have a positive impact on the price of bitcoin.

After the election, bitcoin ETFs, led by BlackRock’s popular IBIT fund, registered strong inflows — including their largest day of inflows ever at one point — initially offsetting sell pressure from long-term holders who took profits at new highs. In the same period, options on bitcoin ETFs began trading, ushering in a new way to trade and speculate on the price of bitcoin.

Bulls expect bitcoin’s price to reach $100,000 by the end of 2024 and potentially double by the end of 2025. While the outcome of the U.S. election boosted the price in the short term, many investors agree its impact as a bitcoin catalyst will stay behind in 2024. The coin was already largely derisked from a regulatory perspective, there’s little uncertainty about how it trades or its role as digital gold, and investors are relying on its fundamentals to keep taking the price higher.

Specifically, between the reduction in bitcoin’s supply after this year’s April halving and the growing demand for bitcoin by institutions, as well as by states and countries as a treasury reserve asset, the price is expected to soar. Bitcoin’s cycle peaks usually take at least a year after the halving to come.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/29/bitcoin-heads-for-nearly-40percent-november-gain-as-it-edges-closer-toward-100000.html

Maye Musk is superstar in China

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is already huge in China — but now his 76-year-old mother is a rapidly rising star there as well.

Maye Musk, a model and dietitian, has been a frequent visitor to China since last year, gaining a big online following from a Chinese public curious to know more about the woman who raised their business idol while becoming a celebrity in her own right as a “silver-haired influencer.”

During her travels, she makes a point of supporting her son’s business interests, noting in social media posts how many Teslas she sees on Chinese roads even as the U.S. electric vehicle maker faces growing competition from domestic rivals such as BYD.

She is also full of praise for the country.

“China is so advanced in roads, tunnels, buildings, infrastructure, and ports,” she wrote on her son’s social media platform X in October. “Always impressed when I visit.”

Musk told Women’s Wear Daily in February that she visited 12 Chinese cities last year for speaking engagements and modeling. Speaking to the publication in New York, she brushed off the idea that Chinese tensions with the U.S. might dampen her travel there.

“When I go to China, everybody’s happy, friendly and fun,” she said. “Even with my friends here, they all want to visit China now.”

Musk has quickly amassed a substantial number of followers on Chinese social media, including about 575,000 on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent of Instagram, and 355,000 on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok.

Musk is one of a number of “silver-haired influencers” in China, a fast-aging country where there is growing concern about aging well.

“Physical beauty fades, but after enduring the test of time, her demeanor becomes more refined, her grace more noble — truly admirable,” one person wrote on Xiaohongshu.

Much of her popularity stems from her 2019 memoir, “A Woman Makes a Plan,” which was translated into Chinese the following year, said Ashley Dudarenok, the founder of ChoZan, a China-focused digital consultancy based in Hong Kong.

The book traces Musk’s “unconventional career path,” Dudarenok said, as well as her struggle to provide for her three children as a single mother after divorcing their father, Errol Musk, at age 31.

“She basically did it her way,” Dudarenok said. “That was one message that resonated very strongly.”

The other appeal, she said, “was that people wanted to figure out, how do you actually give birth [to] and raise billionaires?”

The book has found an audience among working women in China, who are increasingly resistant to social pressure to get married and have children, even as the Chinese government clamps down on the feminist movement and says it is up to them to boost the national birth rate.

“A must-read for all girls! Thank you for showing us the resilience and strength of women,” one Xiaohongshu user wrote.

Though much of the initial interest in Maye Musk came because of Elon, “she is really becoming kind of her own personality,” Dudarenok said.

Older Chinese, who in the past would have devoted all their spare time and money to their grandchildren and other family members, have in recent years realized “that they have this whole life ahead of them, 20, 30 years ahead,” Dudarenok said.

“They have hobbies, they look after themselves in terms of fashion, nutrition, skin care and whatnot,” she said. “And they love to see those role models of somebody who is aging gracefully.”

For Musk, that means appearing on magazine covers and lots of opportunities to endorse products. She has walked the runway for Chinese apparel brand JNBY and appeared at an event in Shanghai this year for the sportswear brand Fila.

She is also a global brand ambassador for Chinese mattress brand AISE Baobao, attending a store opening in Shanghai this month, and has appeared in smartphone advertisements for Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer Oppo.

Her popularity in China could come in handy for her son. Though Elon Musk is still widely admired, Dudarenok said there has been a “cooling off” in public opinion since he financially backed the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to be tough on China.

Given his close ties to Trump — who has asked Musk to head up a new “Department of Government Efficiency” — Musk could take part of the blame if U.S.-China relations deteriorate under the new administration.

Maye Musk’s positive image, Dudarenok said, “helps to make Elon’s future political career and business success in China even more human.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-elon-musk-maye-musk-rcna182118