U.S. stock futures were mixed early Wednesday as Wall Street kept an eye on two runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures pointed to an opening gain of about 50 points, while Nasdaq 100 futures plunged and S&P futures traded slightly lower.
Democrat Raphael Warnock edged ahead of incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Democrat Jon Ossoff outpaced incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue in Georgia’s two Senate runoffs — races that determine which party controls the Senate under a Biden administration.
Late Tuesday night, Newsmax and partner Decision HQ made the call for Warnock, who, in early-morning remarks, promised he would go to the Senate to work for all of Georgia.
“We were told that we couldn’t win this election,” said Warnock, who led by some 40,000 votes with 99 percent of the ballots counted. “But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible.”
Newsmax and Decision HQ called the Ossoff-Perdue race for Ossoff early Wednesday after Ossoff’s lead widened to more than 16,000 votes.
Jon Ossoff, the Democrat seeking to unseat Sen. David Perdue, picked up more than 112,000 votes from DeKalb County outside Atlanta, and as of just before 2 a.m. ET, he held a slender lead of slightly more than 3,500 votes; the race proceeded like that all night, as votes came in from different strongholds across the state.
The two Georgia runoff races will determine control of the U.S. Senate and the fate of President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda and inspired record-breaking turnout and intense national interest under the specter of President Donald Trump’s push to overturn his Nov. 3 loss.
For Democrats to take control of the Senate, both Warnock and Ossoff would need to win. That would split the Senate 50-50 between Republicans and the Democratic caucus, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. Republicans only need to win one seat to hold the majority. Read More
CNN is out with its exit poll from Georgia even though the polls don’t close for another 2 hours.
Oil prices rallied on Tuesday morning, following reports that Russia—the OPEC+ producer that was insisting on a 500,000-bpd production increase in February—has agreed that there would not be another rise in the pact’s production next month.
Both benchmarks were up by more than 3 percent as of 10 a.m. ET, with WTI Crude surging above $49.50 a barrel and Brent Crude trading at $52.80 after several reports emerged that Russia had accepted a compromise not to push for another increase next month.
“An informed source just told me that it appears that #Russia has agreed that there won’t be any increase of 500 thousand bpd for the month of February, but, not the cessation of increase for the month of March,” oil journalist Reza Zandi tweeted early on Tuesday, ahead of the second day of the online meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC). Read More
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz have agreed to implement a stricter lockdown to last 10 days ahead of the government meeting on tightening restrictions Tuesday afternoon.
The Health Ministry has sought a tighter lockdown after the limited lockdown which was implemented a week and a half ago failed to lower coronavirus morbidity rates.
The new restrictions will include the full closure of the education system and will go into effect starting this Friday. Read More
“Most of the mothers in this country are juggling a lot of different responsibilities,” Noem told Breitbart News when asked to put in context what is at stake for mothers in Georgia and nationally in this race. “They have a lot on their plate. Many of them are working, many of them are taking care of elderly parents, many of them are paying the bills, and many of them are making healthcare decisions—all of those are impacted by who we elect and who we put into the U.S. Senate.
David and Kelly have fought to make sure we keep more money in our pockets. If people vote for Warnock and Ossoff to go to Washington, DC, they will raise taxes. They have endorsed the Green New Deal which means four to five years from now we will have $4 to $5 a gallon gasoline.
That will make budgets even tighter, and people will have less money. Our food will be more expensive in the grocery stores. Healthcare decisions would be made by the government. These are very clear facts that Warnock and Ossoff have embraced and said they will do openly and publicly.
They also have a fundamentally different viewpoint of this country, and Warnock especially has had the opportunity to denounce Marxism and socialism and he did not do that. So, that’s the real life choices that I think women and moms are dealing with here in this election cycle, and they need to recognize not only does it change the direction this country is going but it will change their everyday decisions and what resources they have to take care of their families even six months to a year from now.”
Noem won Moms for America’s Mother of Influence award in December 2020, as Breitbart News reported
It was seven years ago that former electric-car engineer Ozzie Zehner wrote “Unclean at Any Speed,” warning that, environmentally speaking, plug-in vehicles were more scam than savior. Now a third-generation automobile dealer who has driven electric cars illustrates how they’re also expensive and unrealistic.
That is, “fast charge” electric power is not only up to 62-percent more costly per mile than gasoline, but powering up is not even all that fast: It takes an hour or more.
This can equate to waiting hundreds of hours annually for your vehicle to charge while on the road. Read More
“Green passport” app provides broad incentives for Israelis to get COVID vaccine
It is somewhat miraculous how Israel was able to procure so many vaccine doses while larger, richer countries are struggling to do the same. There is a feeling that perhaps Pfizer, Moderna and other vaccine manufacturers are using the Jewish state as a kind of testing ground. On the other hand, this is the land of miracles.
Be that as it may, the vast majority of Israelis are clamoring to get jabbed, and there was an air of disappointment over news that the vaccine drive might need to slow down a bit to ensure there are enough second doses for all those who already got their first shot.
What really had Monday’s demonstrators hot and bothered was a Knesset Law Committee meeting taking place at the same time to discuss the “green passport” initiative that will allow inoculated Israelis to return to some semblance of a normal life. Read More