Compared to the first quarter of 2023, total ships passing through the Suez Canal is down 52.7% in 1Q2025, and total net tons passing through is down 68.4%

 Freedom of the seas not restored.

 

Traffic through the Suez Canal to and from the Red Sea remains down 60%, Egypt is losing billions of dollars on transits still rerouted around the southern tip of Africa

 The New York Times reports here:

... The cease-fire, which began May 6, ended a U.S. campaign that involved over 1,100 strikes against the Houthis in Yemen and became a source of embarrassment for the Trump administration after group chats about the strikes inadvertently became public. The Pentagon had planned on a monthslong bombardment, but President Trump ended it after about 50 days.

“If the intention was to restore freedom of navigation, which is what they stated it was, then the results speak for themselves: The shipping industry has not gone back,” said Richard Meade, editor in chief of Lloyd’s List, a shipping publication. ...

 

American inability to guarantee freedom of the seas is a serious turning point for the world.

The funniest thing that's happening to Donald Trump right now is that while he tries to intimidate the Fed to reduce interest rates and they do nothing, yields are soaring all by themselves

 The bond market is issuing a vote of no confidence in our elected leadership.

One branch of Republican government thinks this is the 19th century with a robust manufacturing base it needs to protect with crazy wild tariffs, and another branch of Republican government thinks it's just fine to go on spending like drunken sailors and not raise taxes to pay for any of it.

Interest payments alone on the national debt in fiscal year 2024 soared to $1.1 trillion against revenues of $4.9 trillion.

Meanwhile the most powerful military in the world can't stop a bunch of rag-headed heathen bastards from launching missiles at Israel.

These people are crackerdog.

US Treasury yields are now up a net 2.37% across the curve since last Friday.

 

Long duration is very unhappy: 10Y at 4.53 at the close yesterday, 20Y at 5.00, 30Y at 4.97.

 

VUSTX ytd total return: -0.53%.

 

 

The devastating truth about the end of US Houthi attacks is that US forces failed after spending more than $1 billion

 The thread is here.

The limits of conventional power have been reached.

Putin has been experiencing the same in Ukraine and could have been defeated, too, had Trump not given him a lifeline with his stupid peace talks.

The future of Taiwan is in great peril.

 

 

A week before the 60-day War Powers Act deadline, the Houthis conveniently cry uncle and pledge to halt attacks on US naval forces and Red Sea shipping

 

Israel wipes out the Houthi airport, fuel supplies, and concrete factory and then they finally cry uncle? 

Something doesn't add up here.

Trump announces US will stop bombing Houthis 

... Trump, ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said the halt would start immediately. The Houthis approached the administration on Monday night indicating “they want to stop the fighting,” he said. ...

Israel escalated strikes against the Houthis on Monday night with 20 fighter jets bombing the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah. Israeli forces were responding to a ballistic missile strike against the Jerusalem airport by the group. The Trump administration also labeled the Houthis a terror group in March, changing a Biden-era policy. ... Houthi strikes against the waterway have declined significantly in recent months, and the group hasn’t targeted a commercial vessel since late December. ... 

Israel's military says it has fully disabled Yemen's main airport with strikes... 

... “We indirectly informed the Americans that the continued escalation will affect the criminal Trump’s visit to the region, and we have not informed them of anything else,” said Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi’s supreme political council, in a statement carried by the rebel-controlled SABA news agency early Wednesday. Trump is due to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next week. ...

The War Powers clock is ticking: The US military has been bombing Yemeni Houthis since March 15 but the Houthis can still strike Israel

 

A missile from Yemen halts flights in Israel hours before top officials vote on plans for Gaza war 

... Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a video statement that the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport. ...

The US Navy lost an F/A-18 and its tractor off the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier evading a Houthi missile in the Red Sea yesterday according to reports, but that's not the real story

This story, for example, says nothing about evading a Houthi missile.

Fighter jet slips off carrier hangar deck in Red Sea, one minor injury

 

And is this even the Truman?

I mean, that's an F-35 going in the drink, not the same jet.

You can't trust anybody these days apparently.

The Chicoms are helping the Houthis target ships in the Red Sea with satellite imagery

 

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz actively added Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal chat about the coming Houthi attack

 

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said he never met Jeffrey Goldberg but stood right next to him at the French Embassy in 2021 lol

 

The Atlantic calls Trump's bluff and publishes full Signal thread sent to its editor by mistake by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz

 The Atlantic publishes full Signal thread with Hegseth, Waltz after Trump says texts not classified

... Goldberg in Wednesday’s report wrote: “If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.”

“The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic,” he wrote. ...

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic was mistakenly included in the Houthi Signal Chat because he shares the same initials as Jamieson Greer

 

Goldberg, who has the same initials as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, was mistakenly added to the group by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.

Reported here.

I hope they don't bomb Ireland when they intend to bomb Iran.

I guess we'll just have to have a Fourth Reich, then, armed to the teeth with nukes: Millennials Pete Hegseth and J. D. Vance think the Europeans are freeloaders

 

In the chats, the user identified as Vice President JD Vance expresses concerns about the strikes but ultimately agrees to go along with US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth's plan - before adding 'I just hate bailing Europe out again.'

Hegseth responds: 'I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC.' 

And of course they want to throw Mike Waltz under the bus:

There are claims that Mr Waltz is facing the sack over the saga - as he's believed to have been the official who 'added the editor-in-chief [of The Atlantic] to the group'.

One source told Politico: 'Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a f***ing idiot.'

The Financial Times reports that privately some German officials are starting to wonder out loud whether the time has come to acquire their own nuclear arsenal.

Incompetent Pete Hegseth, or was he drunk?, texted US Houthi attack plan to The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg just hours before it was launched on March 15

 The Ides of March will get you every time.

 

 

 

The president, who is hard of hearing, confuses Israeli Yemen strike question from a reporter with a US union strike scheduled for Tuesday

 The most interesting part of the video however is how Jill just abandons Joe to his fate with the reporters, showing that she doesn't care to cover for him anymore, you know, like Democrats have been doing since the beginning of this administration.

The reporters don't even help him.

The pathetic spectacle is here.

Biden at debate says no one wants to screw with the USA, Houthi attacks continue in Red Sea sinking ships, diverting traffic, and driving shipping costs up 233% year over year

 

Does Joe even know?

Does Joe even remember?

 

Way to go, Brandon: The M/V Tutor is now believed to have sunk in the Red Sea after Houthi surface attack

 

Joe Biden's restraint in the Red Sea against Yemen's Houthis is a disgrace: 77 cargo ships attacked since Oct 7, container traffic down 67%, tanker traffic down 50%, US out $1 billion so far

  

 Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Iran-backed Houthi rebels have lobbed missiles, drones and other weapons at commercial vessels and warships nearly every day. Although most of the weapons have been shot down, at least 77 cargo ships have been hit, and one British-owned ship carrying 20,000 tons of fertilizer aboard was sunk. ...

The Biden administration has limited its military response to the Houthi attacks, hoping to avoid being drawn into a wider Middle East conflict.

More. 

As we write the coal-carrier MV Tutor has been hit and abandoned in the Red Sea with one crew member believed to be drowned after being trapped in the flooded engine room.

Rubymar now reported sunk in the Red Sea thirteen days after Houthi attack

 

Update 3/4/24:

Red Sea internet cables may have been damaged by dragging anchor of cargo ship Rubymar on Feb 24, attacked and disabled by the Houthis on Feb 18

 The Wall Street Journal reports: