Week 49: December 8, 2024 -- December 14, 2024

Locator: 44459TOPSTORIES.

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Hiatus Between November 5, 2024 - January 20, 2025: Twelve Weeks
Biden-Trump Transition
December 8 - December 14, 2024: Week Six

The transition works this way, this cycle:

• Biden's emphasis is on pardons and commutations; 
• setting up Trump for failure; Biden will fade away
• Trump's focus is to look presidential well before inauguration
• putting his administration (and "Shadow Government") in place;
• nominations: being named
• executive orders being drafted
  

The Florida White House:

• Trump is the president, simply waiting to make it official, January 20th (unchanged from last week)
• surrounding himself with "self-made billionaires"
• those billionaires not named to his administration are making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago
• to state their case why they are worthy
• sort of reminds me of the three wise men making their way to Bethlehem
• in this case: Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Tim Cook
• Mar-a-Lago's chief of staff: Elon Musk

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The Top Stories

Top story of the week:

• Time's person of the year: President-elect Trump
  
• ABC News found guilty of defaming President-elect Trump; huge judgement
• Time's athlete of the year; said to be historic: unable to find any other female athlete so honored;
  
• Caitlyn Clark (an astounding 35-minute read)
  
• (Katie Ledecky has been named female athlete of the year, but never Time's cover)
  
• fast-moving geo-political changes in Syria
  
• collateral damage: Iran, Lebanon

Top international non-energy story:

• Syria falls; Mideast map being re-drawn as Trump assumes presidency
• only real question: will Russia maintain its only Mediterranean port it has in Syria
• militarily unimportant
  
• Germany in economic dire straits (unchanged from last week)
  

Top international energy story:

• 
  

Top national non-energy story:

• Biden makes history by greatest number of pardons and commutations in one day ever in history of the United States: 39 and 1500, respectively
• immigration, deportation panic (unchanged from last week)
  

Top national energy story:

• Venture Global starts LNG production at second Louisiana plant; Plaquemines LNG becomes eighth LNG export facility in the US to come online since 2016.
  
• gasoline prices and Biden's polling numbers trending in same direction
  
• GM shuts down Cruise (the vehicle, not Tom)

Focus on fracking: current link here. Generally updated late Sunday night.

Top North Dakota non-energy story:

Top North Dakota energy story:

• Briar Creek oil field
  

Geoff Simon's quick connects: link here.