Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Who's gonna tell him?

 Bessent: Inflation jump will be 'short-term blip'...

Core inflation has been rattling around 3% or higher for nearly five consecutive years as our betters fail to get inflation down to their 2% goal.

I say their goal because 0% is the goal in the law. 

Goals are real nice, aren't they?

They, too, are meaningless. They are tricks to persuade you that our elected officials are serious people who agree with you while they have no intention of doing what they say they will do.

"Well I'm really sorry, Mr. Smith. We tried really hard to get inflation down but we had all these unexpected events ruin our best efforts." 

In 1Q2026 core inflation rose, to 3.11%, and under current circumstances no one thinks 2Q is going to be lower, which will make it five full years of this and headed the wrong way again.

One good blip deserves another, I guess. 

The Treasury Secretary is not serious about inflation, and just about everyone points to Scott Bessent as the serious person in this administration.

We are so screwed. 

 




LA Mayoral race: How does the percentage of the vote counted go down 7 points in 3.5 hours lol?!

 LA's problems are worse than you imagined!

 

But look at the other California races.

Results for Congressional District 7 were 50% counted at 1212 PM, but only 45% counted at 338 PM!

District 22 went down too, from 67% to 61%.

The race for governor went from 62% counted to 57%.

District 6 went from 55% to 50%.

And District 14 went from 51% counted to 47% counted.

 

As time goes by in California, they just keep finding more votes to count I guess, unlike in the rest of America.

 

1212 PM

338 PM


 Update, June 4, 2026, 545pm ROFLMAO:


 

This Donald Hussein Trump statement is willfully blind

 Trump: "A Little Perturbed" About Israel "Constantly Fighting With Lebanon... We've Got To Stop It"

As if Hezbollah doesn't exist in Lebanon.

Or Hamas in Gaza. 

Or Russia in Ukraine.

Who's side is he on, anyway?!

 

United Against Nuclear Iran says Iran's oil exports collapsed to a trickle in May due to the US Navy blockade of Iranian shipping

May 2026 Iran Tanker Tracker 

 

 


ADP total nonfarm private payrolls rose 122k in May 2026, but the 10-year trend for monthly change is basically flat not booming

But you already knew that.

 


Senator Thom Tillis says it's still amateur hour at the White House lol

 GOP Sen. Tillis slams Trump intelligence pick Pulte: ‘Don’t think he has a prayer’

... “Whoever these people are in the White House need to get the hell out of the White House,” Tillis said. “I am tired of amateur hour.” 

Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Joel Kotkin took a vacation to Italy to find fascism and found conservatism instead

Joel Kotkin, RealClearInvestigations 
 
In today’s Italy, some outlets like The Guardian label the present government of Giorgia Meloni as the doyenne of what it describes as “neo-fascism.” They see in her politics a savvy, gradualist way to restore the Mussolini-era patriarchy and strong, controlling state.
 
Although her party has its roots in a political descendant of the fascist regime, there is little evidence of what historian Simonetta Falasca-Zamboni has described as “fascist spectacle.” There are few Meloni posters, much less statues in Rome or elsewhere. She does not hold the kind of massive show-of-strength rallies that Mussolini and Hitler specialized in. Unlike Mussolini, she has no cadre of violent “Blackshirts” to impose the party’s will. 

Meloni’s governing philosophy, instead, is traditionalist and conservative. Like others in the European “far right,” she is protective of the vast Italian welfare state and not willing to rock the boat of what is, whatever its political coloration, a profoundly conservative country. Leftists do not fear criticism of her will land them in jail. Actually, the rising censorship in Britain and the EU is applied to those who challenge progressive assumptions. When Meloni’s proposed judicial reform was voted down, Meloni dutifully accepted the results. “She’s basically a Christian Democrat,” Rome-based economist Veronica De Romanis told me. “Stability is her main goal.” ... 

OMG not THAT idiot

 Trump picks housing Dir. Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief, replacing Tulsi Gabbard

 

But speaking of idiots, just how does one become a former scion anyway?



 

Monday, June 1, 2026

The communist New York Times favors State of Massachusetts dictation of minimum lot sizes, the very same idea bipartisan legislators are keen to impose on Michigan residents

 ... For decades, the state government has ceded control over housing policy to its 351 cities and towns. When it comes to housing policy, the state of Massachusetts is often a bystander, allowing town governments to impose classic “not in my backyard” policies. ... The initiative would prevent many towns from setting needlessly large minimums for lot sizes and effectively blocking the construction of middle-class homes. The campaign, Legalize Starter Homes, is now trying to gather the nearly 12,500 signatures it needs before June 17 to place the measure on the ballot. We endorse the initiative. ... The initiative would create a statewide minimum of 5,000 square feet, which is about the size of a basketball court, and bar towns from setting their own standards. ...

That's less than 1/8 acre lol.

The editorial is here

Yuri Zhivago once had his "too big" house taken away from him by the communists, too, to make room for thirteen families:


 

 

Befuddled old man who once insisted on unconditional surrender doesn't know what to do anymore

Sad! 

 Trump tells CNBC: ‘I don’t care’ if Iran negotiations are over 

... But when asked if he has reached out to NATO to participate in reopening the strait, Trump said, “They would if I wanted them to, but I’m not sure I want them to.” ...

 



 

I hate the greedy bastards of summer

 


In March Pete Hegseth couldn't decide if Iran's military was merely decimated or totally devastated, and now Trump tells us Iran's military wasn't really hurt at all

 Humpty Dumpty says words mean whatever he says they mean.

Meanwhile I'm quite certain nine in ten members of Iran's military prefer decimation to devastation. 

 





 

Tim Carney doesn't mention why the bad polling results for Republicans and Trump on the economy started already in May 2025

The word "tariff" does not appear in this column lol.

  

... But the bad polling trends for Republicans and Trump generally started late last year, before the attack on Iran. The right-track-wrong track numbers started souring last May.

It’s reasonable then to suspect that Trump’s other problems — including stubborn inflation (aside from gas prices) and his family’s sketchy business dealings — are harming the GOP. This pre-Iran trend also suggests that the numbers won’t simply reverse if the Strait of Hormuz reopens and gas prices fall.

The Republican Party’s problem is deeper than gas prices, and so things won’t get better before November. The only question is whether things get worse.

Oh yeah, Iran wants to make a deal so badly it now threatens to shut down the Red Sea on top of the Persian Gulf

U.S. intercepts Iran missiles targeting American forces in Kuwait: CENTCOM 

Treasury yields rise after Iran reportedly stops communication with U.S.  

 U.S. oil jumps more than 7% on report Iran will halt talks with U.S. and completely block Hormuz

U.S. oil prices jumped nearly 8% Monday, after Iranian state media said Tehran will halt talks with the U.S. and completely close the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon. ...

Tehran will completely block the Strait of Hormuz and open other fronts including the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Tasnim reported. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is a trade chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. ... 

Former Fed Chair Jerome Powell accepts Profile in Courage Award

 Fed’s Powell warns Trump’s political ‘stress test’ will wreck public trust in central bank

... “If any administration finds a ​way to remove Fed officials ​over policy differences, then ⁠future administrations will do so as well,” Powell said while accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. “The public would lose faith that the central bank will make decisions based only on what’s best for all Americans.” ... 

Sunday, May 31, 2026

Middle East tanker transits May 24-30, 2026 per UKMTO JMIC Update 52: Strait of Hormuz 1.7/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.1/day

SoH E: 0.7/day

BAM SE: 7.3/day 


Newsweek's broadest case against Trump economy doomers is real GDP per capita lol

 

Gold and silver are still up 5+% year to date

 SPX +10.52% ytd

WTI +53.11% ytd

 

Meanwhile in April: 

Hamburger +18.9% yoy

Coffee +29.0% yoy

Unleaded regular gasoline +28.0% yoy

Electricity +7.2% yoy

Natural gas +3.1% yoy

[Trump 9/21/2024: "We will cut your energy prices in half. Mark it down . . . within 12 months . . ."] 

Milk +1.5% yoy

Whole Chicken -1.6% yoy 

Eggs -56.1% yoy

Tomatoes +50.0% yoy

 

And: 

30-year mortgage average monthly, above 6% since August 2022

Full time jobs above 50% of population just 6 of the last 25 quarters, all under Joe Biden


 

In pop culture news, on Friday's show some perversion was more equal than other perversion: Hot For Teacher 1984 was definitely just fine, 1978's Hot Child In The City . . . not so much


 


The MAGA Marxist wants more stimulus checks

 


The two-week ceasefire will be two months old next week


 

 Trump ends Iran meeting without announcing ‘final determination’ on deal

U.S. and Iran still without deal to end war after Trump says he’s not in a ‘hurry’ 

Because he's Mad King Ludwig, that's why


 

 Fentanyl BAAAAAAAAAAD, Ecstasy GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

 Why Trump reversed course to fast-track psychedelic drugs for mental healthcare

Just about everything ships by diesel in the United States, and the price of it is up 59% since Mad King Ludwig was elected in November 2024

$3.52 > $5.60

 


Saturday, May 30, 2026

Meanwhile CNBC has an excellent story with great interactive graphs of vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait before and after the Houthi and Iran conflicts

 And it's quite clear that the Iran war has had no real effect on the number of vessel transits through the Bab-el-Mandeb while destroying transits through the Strait of Hormuz.

Increased Saudi reliance on Yanbu on the Red Sea might change BAM transits in the future, but to what extent transits through SoH might recover is very difficult to say.

BAM transits never recovered from the Houthi threat, and SoH transits may not from the Iran threat, with serious implications not just for oil but for important bulk materials like fertilizer and helium.

SoH transits:

Feb 24 2026: 107.29
Apr 18 2026:   12.57
May 24 2026:    6.00
 
BAM transits:
 
May 24 2023: 82.86
Feb 26 2026:  40.14
May 24 2026: 38.14 

 

Oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz might not return to levels seen before the Iran war

... Daily traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, collapsed by more than half from 75 ships on Nov. 19, 2023 to 31 vessels by January 30, 2024. More than two years later, traffic through the strait still has not returned to the levels once considered normal. ...







Quite the howler from CNBC this morning: Closure of Strait of Hormuz keeps 100 million barrels a day from reaching global markets lol

Global oil production in 2025 was about 106 million barrels per day.

The Persian Gulf share of that was about 31 million barrels per day. 

 

 Analysis: The Iran war has made inequality worse. An end won’t fix it



The GOP just had a terrible May, generic Congressional poll shows Republicans collapsing to 40.7% giving Democrats an 8.1-point advantage

 


Friday, May 29, 2026

When 86 is the good news



The sum of the average prices of five ingredients for your April 2018 BLT (bacon, lettuce, tomato, lightly toasted white bread in butter) is 86-cents less in April 2026 than it otherwise would have been if it had increased as much as overall inflation has increased, up 27% instead of 33%.

Don't spend it all in one place.

Jeff Bezos disposed of some your personal income last night lol

I mean, you blow yours on fireworks, why shouldn't he?

 



Thursday, May 28, 2026

Middle East tanker transits May 21-27, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.3/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 15.6/day

SoH E averages 1.3/day

BAM SE averages 7.3/day

 


Trump inflation is Bush-league: PCE inflation goes boing, core PCE inflation 3.3% year over year takes us back to early 1992

And you remember what happened to Bush 41 in 1992.

 

boing

Trump's core pce inflation is Bush-league (41!)


Real GDP in 1Q2026 second estimate revised lower from 2.0% annualized to 1.6% annualized "primarily reflecting downward revisions to investment and consumer spending" lol

 I guess those trillion$ Trump said were coming into the country have not come in, and consumer spending is higher only because everything costs so damn much more due to inflation.

May 21: Consumers are still spending, but cracks are starting to show

Dec 5: Trump touts over $20 trillion in new U.S. investments, but the numbers don't add up

 

A191RL1Q225SBEA: 1Q1984-1Q2026 Trend


 

Uganda closes border with Congo where as many as 220 already may be dead from Ebola

 ... The number of suspected cases in eastern Congo is nearing 1,000, with at least 220 suspected deaths. Congo’s health ministry on Tuesday said 101 cases have been confirmed, and they are looking into over 3,000 possible contacts. ...

More

Trump disapproval new high 58.6%

 


Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Donald Trump is the leader of the Party of Violence

 

... MMA was once considered so savage that at the turn of the century, unlike pornography and other controversial fare, it wasn’t even carried on pay-per-view in many places. Now, the UFC is so mainstream that CBS, a network that on Saturday nights once aired Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, is showing Swanson club Landwehr’s cranium with his right hand, knocking him out in the first round. ...  The UFC packs arenas around the world, and the most powerful person on the planet, right beside White, is its promoter in chief. ... Across the room [of White's office in Vegas] are two pistols. One barrel is cloaked in a red bible cover, the other in a black one. “Those two books have killed more people than any handgun ever made,” says White. “I am very antireligion.” ...                         

When I was a kid we used to laugh at boys with girly names like Dana.

Maybe Dana White's masculinism is as simple as that.

 


 

The good news is that the phony Chip Roy lost, the bad news is that the crook Ken Paxton won

 But! it will not be without humor, and with any luck Cornyn will serve out his term impeding Trump's impulses.

Paxton: Talarico Is A Vegan Who Thinks God Is Non-Binary And There Are 6 Sexes

Talarico Denies He's Vegan: "I've Been Eating Barbecue Since Before Ken Paxton's First Indictment"

 


   

Conservatism in 2026 according to National Review

 


Nothing screams conservatism like production and consumption

 FDR merely gave you a check every month in your retirement, but conservatives gave you gas.


Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Middle East tanker transits May 19-25, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.4/day

 The table shown below is from JMIC Update 50.

The previous update was JMIC Update 48, the table in which in comparison with the one in 47 looked hopelessly screwed up, so I guess they just skipped an Update 49 and started fresh on May 19 lol.

There is no overlap in the table in 50 with the previous table, which has been the customary procedure from update to update. 

BAM NW averages 8.7/day, BAM SE 7.7/day.

Keep in mind NW tankers which transit north to fill at Yanbu, then leave and transit south again can thus become SE transits in addition to NW transits in the totals. Most of these tankers are making this round trip, and most of them are 2-million barrel capacity very large crude carriers which sail in empty and sail out again full. 

SoH E transits average just 1.6/day.

 



Trump cabinet keeps on sucking until it does succeed


 

 

Russia informs Rubio what's good for the goose is good for the gander, plans decapitation strikes to get Zelenskyy after Rubio flubs up and signs his death warrant by ending talks


 

 Russia tells Rubio U.S. citizens should leave Kyiv ahead of strikes on Ukrainian capital 

... Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “officially informed” Washington that Russia would be launching “systematic and consistent strikes” against Ukrainian military facilities and what Moscow called “decision-making centers,” in a call with Rubio on Monday, according to the Russian government. ... Rubio told journalists on Friday that U.S.-led efforts to negotiate a peace deal had ended, explaining that previous talks “were not fruitful.” ...

Yeah, Iran is blinking so hard it's laying more mines in the Strait of Hormuz ROFLMAO

 U.S. conducts ‘self-defense strikes’ in Iran as Trump pushes for peace deal

... CENTCOM spokesman Tim Hawkins said targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines. ...

Why is the winner pushing for a peace deal?

Usually the loser does that. 

Iran is in the ‘process of blinking’ over the Strait of Hormuz, Petraeus says