SoH E: 10.4/day
SoH W: 7.1/day
BAM SE: 8.3/day
BAM NW: 7.7/day
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Alito: So the Supremes rule by default that the words "subject to the jurisdiction" in the 14th Amendment are indeed superfluous, which is nuts
... Third, the Court cannot explain why the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States applies to naturalized citizens. All naturalized citizens, like everyone else who is present in this country, must obey the law, so if that phrase meant what the Court thinks, it is superfluous. By contrast, if it means not being “subject to any foreign power,” it serves an identifiable purpose and explains why the naturalization statutes, both before and after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, required those seeking naturalization to renounce allegiance to any other country. For these reasons, the Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause fails on textualist grounds.
3
The Court does not confront these problems because it pays little attention to the constitutional text. Instead of performing its own textual analysis, the Court leans on precedent that glosses the text. Ante, at 10–12. But none of the cases it cites analyzed the text of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. ...
On campaign spending the Supremes rule once again in an excessively libertarian manner
Supreme Court strikes down limits on political parties’ campaign spending, in win for GOP
The ruling actually levels the playing field more in the direction of the Democrats than the GOP.
But that is beside the point.
Unlimited spending on campaigns is a good thing, AS LONG AS the funds come from inside the representative's congressional district, or the Senator's state, or the president's country (well doh, except the latter appears to be no longer the case!).
I'm tired of special interests outside my state electing my representatives in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
And I certainly don't want foreigners electing the president.
I was confidently told House Speaker Mike Johnson would never go against Trump by sending him the housing bill lol
Exclusive: Johnson says housing bill will become law, with or without Trump
... "He won't veto the bill. We already know that. He'll either allow it to just go into law, or he'll put his signature on it and take partial ownership, and I hope he does the latter." ...
Monday, June 29, 2026
Right, when I think of authentic Michigan the first thing which comes to mind is a mechanical milking cow
... Officials from Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, North Carolina and Connecticut told CNN they declined an invitation from the Trump administration to showcase their states at the giant fairgrounds being built on the National Mall. Pennsylvania has yet to decide whether it will participate.
... But all 50 states and territories will be represented even if some states don’t provide input, and details are still being “actively finalized,” a spokesperson for Freedom 250 told CNN.
“What we can say is that every state’s story will be told in a way that’s authentic to its people, history, and culture,” the spokesperson said, adding, “Whether represented by a governor’s office, a tourism board, or a beloved state company or organization, every community will be celebrated.”
... In Michigan, visitors will get a chance to see a mechanical milking cow ...
Social media have been featuring film of these Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries for weeks, attacks which have produced long lines for fuel across Russia
The main take away is that Ukraine easily penetrates Russian air defenses with these weapons.
If that can be done there, it can be done here, there, and everywhere.
Nota bene.
Putin’s fuel shortage admission signals growing strain on Russia’s energy infrastructure
... Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil facilities in recent weeks, seeking to cut off Moscow’s energy revenues and try to force Putin into bringing an end to the more than four-year war.
... Ukraine has also intensified its strikes on Crimea, which Russia seized by force in 2014, as part of a strategy to isolate the peninsula, and has benefited from a series of political tailwinds in recent weeks.
... Ukraine’s president recently signed off on a 40-day operation designed to influence the Kremlin to bring an end to the war. Zelenskyy, who shared the announcement via Telegram on Thursday, gave no further details about the campaign. ...
Sunday, June 28, 2026
Reuters and CNBC reported the restart to Saudi oil export operations in the Persian Gulf on Saturday
Saudi Aramco resumes oil loading at Ras Tanura in boost to supply
... Two Very Large Crude Carriers controlled by Saudi’s shipping arm Bahri were seen loading crude at Ras Tanura, the world’s biggest oil port, while another is heading towards the terminal, the data showed on Friday. A fourth VLCC waited nearby. Each VLCC is capable of loading 2 million barrels of oil.
... Ras Tanura sits on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast on the Gulf and is west of the Strait of Hormuz. It used to export more than 5 million bpd of crude before the conflict. The country’s largest domestic 550,000 bpd refinery is also located at Ras Tanura, which was shut during the war as a precautionary measure.
Aramco last loaded a cargo from Ras Tanura port for China on March 8, LSEG data showed, and had to divert its exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu after the Iranian blockade of the strait during its war with the U.S. and Israel prevented ships from entering the Gulf.
The war has caused Saudi crude exports to slump to about 4 million bpd in the past three months, the data showed, from more than 7 million bpd in February.
... [Rystad Energy] now estimates that shut-in production across the Gulf has fallen to 9.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in mid-June, down from 11.7 million bpd just three weeks ago, and expects a full supply recovery in the region by the end of the year.
Middle East tanker transits June 21-27, 2026, from JMIC Update 064: Strait of Hormuz 16.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.1/day
SoH Normal: ~70/day
Anomaly: -53.6/day, down 76.6%
SoH E: 10.3/day
SoH W: 6.1/day
BAM Normal: ~30/day
Anomaly: -13.9/day, down 46.3%
BAM SE: 7.6/day
BAM NW: 8.6/day
J. D. Vance wants you to believe white people got Reagan elected in 1984 but not Nixon in 1972, among other fantasies
In any case he's going with "we're more like Nixon than Reagan".
Alrighty then.
I think they'll be a LOT more like Nixon after November.
Some call this knowing how to get in the headlines, others call it dog-whistling.
Saturday, June 27, 2026
Oh gee what a coincidence lol
Trump says he is nominating former Oklahoma state trooper Lance Schroyer as ICE director
... Schroyer hails from the same home state as the new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a former congressman. ...
Mullin: "I know a guy".
Trump: "Good. He's in".
Trump will never master personnel.
I sure hope he turns out better than the pool guy!
Meanwhile the foreign born population level, which counts without respect to citizenship status, is still higher than when Trump was elected in November 2024.
That deportation thingy in Trump II is going about as well as The Wall went during Trump I.
Death toll in Venezuela approaches 1,000 with over 51,000 missing
Venezuelans take search for the missing into their own hands as earthquake death toll climbs
... The number of dead was expected to climb, and civilians reported tens of thousands of people missing on independent digital databases. The number of missing likely includes those who have been incommunicado due to the lack of cellphone signals in disaster zones. Some reports may be duplicates created when multiple loved ones are searching for the same person. ...
Friday, June 26, 2026
Meanwhile others claim the Saudis are moving oil through the Strait of Hormuz
In a world where tankers routinely turn off their automatic marine identification systems to avoid identification and hide their locations, or use them to broadcast fake identities and locations, or even sail under false flags, it is difficult to know what to believe.
The oceans are still The Wild West.
Two examples today claiming Saudi use of the Strait of Hormuz:
The one big missing factor: Saudi Arabia reportedly has not used the Persian Gulf to ship anything
... Aristidis Alafouzos, CEO of Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp, a crude oil shipping company headquartered in Greece, said he doesn’t expect Thursday’s attack on a ship in the Gulf of Oman to “significantly change” the trend of transits through the waterway.
“We’ve seen a large increase, especially on the crude oil passages, and I think this is set to continue and maybe this one-off event isn’t enough to really disrupt the recent events of the large exports of Kuwaiti and Emirati crude oil from the Gulf,” Alafouzos told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday.
“The one big missing factor is the Saudis. For now, we haven’t seen them export almost anything from inside the Arabian Gulf and everything is coming from Yanbu in the Red Sea.” ...
Former Attorney General Bill Barr endorses Todd Blanche to run the Department of Injustice because Blanche is the only person who has a snowball's chance in hell of bringing Mad King Ludwig back to reality
But that's just Barr's cover story.
Bill Barr knows Blanche's only successes defending Trump as his personal lawyer relied on delaying tactics, both in the classified documents case and in the federal election subversion case.
Do we really want more of that in his official capacity as Attorney General?
Isn't that what the Justice Department was famous for under Bondi, who dragged her feet releasing the Epstein files?
C'mon man.
Other than that, Blanche lost the Manhattan hush money case and Trump was convicted of 34 felonies.
I see no reason for Todd Blanche to fail upwards, unless of course he's probably the best choice to have around if you want to delay what's coming for Trump after November.
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Middle East tanker traffic June 18-24, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 12.3/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.9/day
SoH E: 6.6/day
SoH W: 5.7/day
BAM SE: 7.6/day
BAM NW: 9.3/day
The current economic growth rate continues to underperform the post-war compound annual growth rate to Reagan by 42%
1Q2026 real GDP in the third estimate today came in at an annualized rate of 2.1%.
The first estimate was 2.0%. The second was 1.6%.
The revision back up again and a little higher was "primarily reflecting a downward revision to imports", which are a subtraction from GDP.
Expect higher GDP in 2Q on the strength of oil exports.
The post-war economic growth rate to Reagan was 3.64% compound annual vs. 2.1% now.
The compound annual rate 2017-2025 was 2.48%.
Trump is even underperforming himself by 15%.
When will real personal income be great again?
Real personal income year over year in May 2026 fell 0.24%.
Are Obama and Biden still in charge?
Core pce inflation in May 2026 came in at 3.41% year over year
What in the Sam Hell is golden about this age?
Absolutely nothing.
There's nothing Greenspan about it either.
Alan Greenspan's core pce inflation averaged 2.46% year over year 1987-2006.
Well guess what, Speaker Mike Johnson apparently never presented the housing bill to the president, so the 10-day clock is not ticking for it to become law
Trump halts bipartisan victory lap on housing
... One potential wrinkle in that 10-day clock is that it doesn’t start until the enrolled bill has been officially “presented” to the president.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether that had happened yet as of Trump’s social media post at 10:26 a.m. But as the day went on it became apparent the bill still hadn’t been presented to the president, according to a top Democrat.
House Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark, D-Mass., laid the blame at Johnson’s feet.
“Mike Johnson could, right now, at any time, formally present this bill to the president and make the president choose: Will he veto it or will it become law in ten days?” Clark said at a news conference. “But Mike Johnson is not choosing that path. That is a betrayal of duty.”
Aides to Johnson didn’t respond to requests for comment. ...
Trump moves forward with U.S. Postal Service plan to interdict mail-in ballots and prevent voting by mail in states which won't give him voter data
This is not a joke.
Postmaster general confirms plan to hold back mail ballots in states that won’t share voter data
Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers Wednesday that the U.S. Postal Service will no longer deliver mail-in ballots in states that refuse to provide sensitive voter data to the federal government, in line with a proposed rule from the Trump administration. ...
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
As long as Trump doesn't veto the damn thing, the Uniparty's housing bill will become law in 10 days without his signature
But he will be remembered negatively for it in November either way.
Democrats who want to impeach the president will include it prominently in their campaigns against him.
Throwing a fit over this is about as smart as attacking Iran without a plan to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
We call that just another Wednesday in America
France suffers major power outage as Europe sizzles in record-breaking heat
... A heat-related incident left around 68,000 homes without electricity in western France, according to the prefecture in the coastal department of Finistere. ...
This housing bill will not help people become homeowners by freeing up existing supply
House passes affordable housing bill, sends it to Trump’s desk
The U.S. House voted Tuesday night 358-32 in favor of a sprawling housing package designed to lower costs for homebuyers and increase supply. ...
The broad bi-partisan support for the bill tells you it won't do much for very many people anytime soon.
But expect the politicians to brag on it as silly season ramps up.
A key provision of the bill caps institutional investor ownership of single family homes at 350 from here on out.
Investors already owning single family homes, however, at whatever level, are grandfathered in. Blackstone, for example, owns approximately 58k such homes. It is thus prevented from buying number 58,001 under the bill.
That means that the approximately 530k+ homes currently owned by institutions, which is only about 4% of the single family housing rental pie, will not be forcibly sold into the market.
About 87% of the pie is individual investors who own in the neighborhood of 1-5 homes. There will be no change mandated there either, which is where most of the available single family housing stock is.
There are 46.4 million renter-occupied housing units in the United States in the first quarter. Of those, approximately 11.3 million are single family homes. That means that the number of owners of those rental homes ranges roughly between 9.8 million and 2 million individual investors, probably living in a rich suburb right near you.
The bill does prevent umbrella companies from owning multiple small entities created by individual investors to beat the 350 cap, with stiff penalties, so that is good.
The problem is this bill entrenches the status quo of the rich preying on both ends of the housing spectrum.
Mobile homes in parks are not considered single family homes under the bill. They are considered multi-unit commercial real estate. Private equity investors are notorious for buying up these parks full of affordable housing and jacking up lot rents on approximately 4.3 million homesites to the moon. Up to 12 million mostly low income Americans live in such parks.
The bill eliminates the mobile chassis rule for new manufactured homes, marginally reducing their cost. But imagine parking one in one of those parks and being unable to move it while the landlord holds a rent gun to your head. There are other provisions in the bill to help these existing park owners, and the mobile home owners who live there to borrow more to pay the greedy bastards.
11.3 million hostages to the rich on the front end, 12 million on the ass end.
The bill had passed in the U.S. Senate 85-5 on Monday.
Since the beginning of the 21st century in the United States, growth of renter-occupied housing continues in the ascendant while growth of owner-occupied housing continues south.
We still live with the deleterious effects of the Great Recession, when more than 6 million residences were completely foreclosed in the United States, and this is the best our elected representatives can do almost two decades on.
Congress is already getting Mamdanied as this goes to Trump for his signature.
When electing a socialist mayor has weightier consequences than many people had first imagined
Three New York Democrats backed by Mamdani win House seat primaries; 2 incumbents lose
... Brad Lander defeated incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the 10th District; Darializa Avila Chevalier bested Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the 13th District; and Claire Valdez won the primary for the 7th District, where Rep. Nydia Velázquez is not seeking reelection. ...
The Democratic Socialists of America organization backed Chevalier and Valdez.
A year ago, the DSA’s efforts helped Mamdani stun the local and national political world by soundly defeating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic mayoral primary, and months later in the general election.
“It’s not just a question of electing more Democrats. It’s a question of electing better Democrats,” Mamdani said Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. ...
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Middle East tanker transits June 16-22, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 7.6/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 17.1/day
SoH E: 3.6/day
SoH W: 4.0/day
BAM SE: 7.3/day
BAM NW: 9.9/day
The main takeaway from this recent very granular chart of Strait of Hormuz tanker transits is that 14 total transits both ways on the most recent day observed is not 70 as at the beginning of the year
For June 18-20, JMIC Update 061 had 30 total tanker transits whereas this Bloomberg guy has just 24.
Traitor Trump gives aid to the Axis of Evil by unlocking Iranian crude oil, 90% of which is normally purchased by the Chicoms
U.S. issues sweeping Iran oil sanctions waivers, unlocking billions in revenue for Tehran
The U.S. has issued a sweeping rollback of sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing dollar-denominated trade for the first time in more than four decades ...
The U.S. Treasury on Monday issued a wide-ranging 60-day exemption allowing Iran to produce and sell crude oil, petrochemical and petroleum products in U.S. dollars through Aug. 21. ...
The move on Monday marks the most sweeping rollback of American oil sanctions against Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, reversing years of pressure designed to cripple Iran’s economy, and is expected to deliver billions in oil revenue for the Iranian regime. ...
U.S. President Donald Trump defended the lifting of the sanctions, saying on Monday that any oil profits were meant for Iran to purchase American agricultural goods, rather than rebuild its military. ...
“With dollar clearing now authorized, expect China to accelerate purchases aggressively,” said Maleki. Chinese buyers, in the past, have settled transactions through opaque channels to avoid secondary U.S. sanctions exposure. ...
He expects a rapid storage “top-off cycle” under which Chinese buyers could rush to replenish stockpiles before the exemption expires in August.
China currently purchases roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports, with teapots accounting for the bulk of China’s imports. The country’s crude imports shrank by an unprecedented 4.8 million barrels per day (mbd) between February and May — a steeper drop than the 4 mbd decline seen during the depths of the pandemic in the second half of 2020, according to JPMorgan. ...
Iran will likely use this 60-day window to repair war-damaged oil facilities and lock in longer-term contracts with Chinese buyers, said Michael Feller, chief strategist at Geopolitical Strategy. “This will be a huge boost to Iran, both to its economy and its sense of victory.”
Monday, June 22, 2026
Disgusting Trump is so desperate for oil he's now importing oil from the terrorist enemy to the United States, something we haven't done in quantity since the 1979 Iranian Revolution
The max was 6k bpd in 2021 of petroleum and petroleum liquids, the equivalent of 2.2 million barrels, slightly more than one VLCC can carry.
What's next, imports from Russia?
Treasury Department authorizes Iranian oil sales through August
... The authorization allows the import of Iranian oil and refined products into the U.S.
... The authorization allows the import of Iranian oil and refined products into the U.S. Payment can be made to Tehran in dollars. The license expires Aug. 21, unless it’s renewed. ...
Oil prices fall after U.S. authorizes Iranian crude sales
Trump actually started the ball rolling during the pandemic in 2020.
He bought some petroleum products from Iran in October 2020 after the collapse in oil demand crashed prices of WTI to -$37/barrel in April.
Biden made purchases in March 2021, January 2022, and in 2023 from August to October.
The homeownership rate soared to 68.8% in 2006 after nearly twenty years of Alan Greenspan at the Fed
The rate when he began as Fed chairman was 64% in 1987, and again in 1990 and 1994, before taking off during the Clinton-Gingrich era.
Supporting the high homeownership rate was full time employment on an average annual basis north of 50% of population for twenty-three consecutive years 1986-2008.
We call it The Lost World.
Core pce inflation remained high but falling during Greenspan's first seven years, but stayed below the trend he helped to create for the remaining thirteen
PCEPILFE fell to 2.23% yoy in 1994 and as low as 1.27% by 1998 even as the Fed Funds Effective Rate (DFF) averaged 5.49% for four years 1995-1998.
Greenspan's observed "irrational exuberance" in stocks certainly wasn't caused by low interest rate policy. By today's standards his policy was hawkish even as the market formed a bubble.
His career core pce inflation performance averaged 2.46% yoy.
It is difficult to imagine today's world being at all patient enough to tolerate Alan Greenspan, especially the Alan Greenspan of 1987-1990 when DFF averaged 7.89%.
He would be run out of town like Ben Bernanke and Jerome Powell, neither of whom arguably were in office long enough to really judge fairly by comparison with Alan Greenspan and both of whom were shabbily treated by Obama and Trump.
Trump's tech-bro tyranny is censoring Trump's critics
Musk Suspends X Accounts Criticizing JD Vance...
I can confirm from personal experience this weekend that this is true after being unaccountably disconnected multiple times just out of the blue and forced to log back in, only to have that process throttled as well.
AMAZON, GOODREADS restrict reviews of Vance book after savage critiques...
He's killing the ducklings, he's killing the offspring of the wildlife that lives there
Dead duck found floating in Trump's new Reflecting Pool...
A DEAD duckling has been found floating in Donald Trump’s troubled new
Reflecting Pool – just days after workers dumped bleach-like chemicals
into the water following its $14million revamp.
... The sad discovery comes just days after workers were photographed pouring large bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool in a bid to tackle the growing algae problem, TMZ reported.
Hydrogen peroxide is generally considered safer than chlorine bleach because it breaks down in water – but high concentrations can pose a risk to ducks and other birds. ...
Middle East tanker transits June 14-20, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 5.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.7/day
Tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz would be normal if they were more like 70 per day total, in and out. This would be out of ~138 total transits, which is the normal historical average including also cargo/bulk/etc. vessels as stated in the latest JMIC Update 061.
We are nowhere close to that after Trump's so-called peace deal with Iran.
People who think the world isn't still headed to an oil supply crisis don't know what they're talking about.
SoH E: 2.6/day; 4.3/day June 18-20 (lol get real)
BAM SE: 7.7/day
The Maestro is dead, long live The Maestro
Greenspan had the main ideas right:
Low inflation over full employment, because inflation is the worst tax on the people;
And broad property ownership as the foundation supporting the American economy and securing the consent of the governed.
During his nearly 20-year tenure, the Federal Funds Effective Rate averaged 4.87%.
This is a really good look at Greenspan's career from Marty Steinberg at CNBC. It is one of the best reads I've had at CNBC in a long time.
Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Fed, dies at age 100
... Throughout, he focused on fighting inflation over promoting full employment. His supporters say he presided over the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, but critics said Greenspan’s low interest rate policies set the stage for the housing bubble that burst into the Great Recession a year after his successor, Ben Bernanke, took the Fed helm.
... in his best-selling memoir “The Age of Turbulence,” he defended the low-rate policy, which encouraged people to buy homes: “I believed then, as now, that the benefits of broadened homeownership are worth the risk. Protection of property rights, so critical to a market economy, requires a critical mass of owners to sustain political support.” ...
Two tier Keir calls it quits after the biggest Labour victory in decades in July 2024, had said he wouldn't and would fight
Joe Biden was once king of the heap, too, until his enemies to the left pushed him off.
That's the story in the UK, too, which CNBC doesn't tell you.
Socialist Andy Burnham led the rebellion against Starmer from within the Labour Party.
Burnham is a self-described enemy of British nationalism.
UK PM Starmer resigns as Britain faces its seventh leader in 10 years
... Keir Starmer’s resignation comes almost 10 years to the day since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. His successor will be the country’s seventh leader in that period, underscoring how political and economic turmoil continue to unsettle British politics long after the Brexit process was concluded.
... Starmer’s government was ultimately weakened by dwindling poll ratings, Labour infighting and growing public frustration over its failure to deliver quickly on growth and the cost of living. ...
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Real conservatism demands August be restored to Sextilis
Yes, it comes right after Quintillis. Sic semper tyrannis.
The UK Labour Party is cracking up as socialist Andy Burnham is set to challenge Starmer
UK minister says PM Starmer is considering ‘political realities’ amid leadership pressure
... The threat to Starmer’s position, which has been building for months, increased sharply on Friday when former Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham won a seat in parliament that will allow him to launch a formal leadership challenge.
Starmer’s unpopularity was laid bare by the ruling party’s heavy losses in local elections in May, and polls of Labour party members indicate Burnham would win such a contest.
... Starmer has previously said he would stand in any formal Labour Party leadership contest that sought to replace him.
Leadership contenders need to amass the support of 81 Labour members of parliament - a fifth of those sitting - to launch a formal challenge.
Saturday, June 20, 2026
The Reflecting Pool paint job made it almost two weeks, the Iran peace deal almost one
Iran reportedly closes Strait of Hormuz again, casting shadow over nuclear talks
Which is better? Two Weeks Trump, or One Week Trump?
Always the last paragraph
Israeli strikes kill 10 in Lebanon hours after ceasefire
... The U.S.-Iran understanding announced this week calls for an immediate, permanent end to military operations by the parties and their allies across multiple fronts, including Lebanon.
Israel, which was not part of those negotiations, has opposed provisions it says could constrain its campaign in Lebanon.
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