Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Spare me your growing concerns about Mitch, Tom Kean was missing in action for four months, missing more than 140 votes in a U.S. House with a GOP majority margin of just five
Tom Kean wasn't in the headlines every damn day.
Mitch hasn't been Senate Majority Leader for 18 months and counting.
If Mitch is absent the Vice President can stand in if there is a tie.
The Mitch-haters on Elon Musk's X are vile and ugly.
Mitch McConnell’s health concerns grow amid 4th week in hospital with few details from aides
GOP Rep. Tom Kean says depression diagnosis caused months-long absence from Congress
Tuesday, July 7, 2026
Middle East tanker transits June 30-July 6, 2026 per JMIC Update 068: Strait of Hormuz 16.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 13.4/day
SoH E: 9.0/day
SoH W: 7.4/day
BAM SE: 7.0/day
BAM NW: 6.4/day
... Metrics are derived from U.S. NCAGS (U.S.-facilitated SoH transits), S&P Maritime, and SeaVision data, and exclude vessels calling Iranian ports adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz. S&P and SeaVision reporting thresholds apply to vessels exceeding 1,000 deadweight tons ...
The most important thing commanding Mad King Ludwig's attention right now is renewing his threats against our friends in Greenland and NATO, not that our enemy Iran just attacked four ships in the Omani corridor in the last 24 hours
His brain is a bucket of eels.
Trump renews Greenland threats at NATO summit, says U.S. could remove troops from Europe
Oil prices rise more than 2% after attacks on tankers in Strait of Hormuz
UKMTO is reporting that three attacks were reported, not four.
I'm so confused
Libertarian Bill King spends 90% of his essay on the Fourth of July telling us how joyous, proud, fundamentally good, commonsensical, and apolitical it all was, only to end it by saying a political reckoning can't come soon enough lol.
Here.
OK Bill.
Monday, July 6, 2026
Silver and gold and stocks, oh my
And the winner is . . . stonks.
 |
| $5 July 1996 to $63 July 2026 = 8.8% CAGR nominal over 30 years, no dividends (cost to secure unknown) |
 |
| $382 July 1996 to $4,173 July 2026 = 8.3% CAGR nominal over 30 years, no dividends (cost to secure unknown) |
 |
| $644.07 July 1996 to $7,450.03 June 2026 = 10.46% average per annum with dividend reinvestment, 8.53% without, nominal (VFIAX current expense ratio 0.04% vs. 0.72% average industry) |
Sunday, July 5, 2026
Liberty literally cracked up in 1846, fifteen years before the whole country did
... No one recorded when or why the
Liberty Bell first cracked, but the most likely explanation is that a
narrow split developed in the early 1840s after nearly 90 years of hard
use. In 1846, when the city decided to repair the bell prior to George
Washington's birthday holiday (February 23), metal workers widened the
thin crack to prevent its farther spread and restore the tone of the
bell using a technique called "stop drilling". The wide "crack" in the
Liberty Bell is actually the repair job! Look carefully and you'll see
over 40 drill bit marks in that wide "crack". But, the repair was not
successful. The Public Ledger newspaper reported that the repair failed
when another fissure developed. This second crack, running from the
abbreviation for "Philadelphia" up through the word "Liberty", silenced
the bell forever. No one living today has heard the bell ring freely
with its clapper, but computer modeling provides some clues into the sound of the Liberty Bell. ...
Middle East tanker transits June 28-July 4, 2026 per JMIC Update 067: Strait of Hormuz 15.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 14.0/day
SoH E: 7.0/day
SoH W: 8.4/day
BAM SE: 7.3/day
BAM NW: 6.7/day
Saturday, July 4, 2026
When Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama said You Didn't Build That, they were channeling that arch communist Benjamin Franklin
All Property, indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention.
Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it.
All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of:
But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition.
He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages.
He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
-- Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, quoted here
Friday, July 3, 2026
Middle East tanker transits June 25-July 1, 2026 per JMIC Update 066: Strait of Hormuz 17.1/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 15.3/day
SoH E: 9.6/day
SoH W: 7.6/day
BAM SE: 8.3/day
BAM NW: 7.0/day
... overall volumes remain uncertain due to AIS-off practices and inconsistent reporting ...
I'll bet he ate Hitler Ice Cream when he was a kid
...This is not gulag socialism ...
Yeah, we know, it's final solution socialism.
It's not job seekers giving up, it's Baby Boomers exiting the stage
... in June the biggest plunge came from what is defined as “prime age” workers, or those between the ages of 25 and 54. That rate fell 0.6 percentage point to 83.3%, its lowest since December 2023.
“Looking at the statistics now, that argument doesn’t hold up so well,” North said of the retirement and immigration rationale. “I hate to use the word ‘alarming,’” he added, but said the numbers are cause for concern. ...
Alarmed? Really now. This misses the forest for a single tree.
Percent change for the labor participation rate for 25-54s is UP .1 and .2 for 1H2026 and 2H2025 respectively.
For 55s+ it's DOWN 0.8 and .2 respectively.
The 55s+ metric has had NINE semiannual declines since 2019 vs. only three for 25-54s.
The former is bleeding participation, while the latter is holding its own.
You can't really appreciate this unless you measure the employment of each group as a percentage of its own population level, from which you can determine how many of them are not working now vs. then.
The number of 55s+ working in 1H2026 and 2H2019 is nearly the same, 37.8 million and 37.6 million respectively, but the former represents only 36% of the group, while the latter represents 39.3%.
That means that the net additions to the no-longer-working side of the total population of the group since 2019 for 55s+ is now 9.193 million, but doing the same exercise for 25-54s yields a statistically insignificant 215k.
Meanwhile employment as a percentage of its own population for 25-54s, unlike for 55s+, has been and remains stronger now than at any point since the dotcom bubble, averaging 80.64% for forty-two consecutive months.
The peak year individuals of the Baby Boom, 1957, turned 62 in 2019, when employment of 55s+ naturally peaked too, while the individuals of the final year of the Baby Boom, 1964, turn 62 now in 2026.
We are witnessing the Baby Boom roll over and disappear from the labor statistics.
Thursday, July 2, 2026
The foreign born population works at a rate of 63.26% in June 2026, the native born at only 58.25%
Foreign born workers numbered 30.725 million, native born 131.997 million.
To get native born employment to 63.26% of their own population in June 2026 would require an extra 11.351 million native born suddenly to get jobs.
The best estimates of current illegal alien presence in the United States range between 11 million and 13.7 million.
The percentage of the native born population working continues to fall because it is aging. The share of the 55s and over who work continues to fall, now down to 35.77% of their cohort.
There are just 26 million people aged 25-54 in the United States who are currently not working. That's where they'd have to come from, a tall order.
Labor's share of business income made another new low in 1Q2026, the fourth consecutive quarterly decline
Meanwhile Applesauce Brains II:
Trump says ‘everybody’s profiting’ from recent market rallies — but it’s mostly the 1%
... The bottom 50% of households collectively hold just 1% of that stock and mutual fund wealth.
... According to a Gallup Poll often cited by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, 38% of American households have no exposure to equities at all.
... As of the first quarter of 2026, the top 1% owned half of corporate equities and mutual fund shares, or about $27.64 trillion, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data, while the top 10% of Americans hold more than 87%.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50% of households collectively held just 1% — or $590 billion — of that stock and mutual fund wealth.
“Half of Americans effectively own no stocks,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. And “to be in the top 1%, you need to make over $750,000 annually.” ...
The Golden Age of eating but not working: A record 105.808 million not-in-labor-force in Donald Trump's America in June 2026, Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate still higher than at any point in his first term when Limbaugh stopped talking about it
The Donald Trump-Rush Limbaugh Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate in June 2026 is 38.14%.
Yeah, 10-12 for the moment, but Carville is right, the Anti-Semites have to go from the Democrat Caucus, including AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Bernie Sanders
But don't kid yourself that the Republican Party is a morally superior alternative anymore.
J. D. Vance already has no anti-semitic enemies to the right in the Republican Party.
Everything forbidden is becoming permitted.
Carville: Democrats Should Not Seat Avila Chevalier In The Democratic Caucus
Foreigners held $9.271 trillion worth of U.S. federal debt in 4Q2025
The corresponding figure for China at the end of 2025 was . . . $0.85 trillion.
🤣
Total external debt of China was $2.328 trillion.
Total external debt of the United States was $29.448 trillion.
America is where it's at, Jack.
Richard Epstein eviscerates John Roberts' reading of the 14th Amendment
In Trump v. Barbara, Chief Justice John Roberts screams from the rafters that the framers of the 14th Amendment affirmed “citizenship, then as now, was the right to have rights—freely to participate in our community.” That’s contrary to history. The framers made sure that the newly freed black citizens didn’t get the vote, because if that benefit had been included, the amendment wouldn’t have passed.
It took the 15th Amendment, ratified more than 1½ years later, to enfranchise black Americans. And that still didn’t extend the franchise to all adult citizens. In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the Supreme Court unanimously held that although women were citizens, the 14th Amendment didn’t confer on them the right to vote. The justices applied the then-standard definition of citizenship as an exchange of protection by the sovereign for loyalty of the citizens. It took the 19th Amendment to enfranchise women as a matter of constitutional right. In the meantime, voting was left exclusively to the states. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 covered only the private rights to contract, testify and make wills. No political rights were involved.
The chief justice wholly failed to explain how his flawed originalist methodology supported birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens or temporary visitors. His blunder is captured in the false proposition that birthright citizenship “crossed the Atlantic with the colonists—and was adopted with little fanfare after the Revolution” as an outgrowth of the common law of England.
Not so. English law had adopted a form of birthright citizenship—but, as Blackstone noted, not as a common-law matter but because naturalization “cannot be performed but by an act of parliament.” The English statutory framework was explicitly rejected in the U.S. Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist No. 32 that the constitutional requirement of a “uniform” naturalization law conferred exclusive jurisdiction on the federal government, to the exclusion of the states.
The chief justice never cites that clause or the Naturalization Acts of 1790 and 1795, which limited naturalization to “free white persons” who had resided in the U.S. for two years (later raised to five), were of good character, and had explicitly renounced their loyalty to all other sovereigns, and determined the status of minor children solely by the status of their parents. That provision excluded all people of African descent until reversed by the 1870 Naturalization Act, which didn’t apply to people of Asian descent until after 1900. Chief Justice Roberts then cites a group of irrelevant state-law cases, none of which deal with birthright citizenship, but addressed such issues as the ability to inherit under state law, to hold state office, or to vote in state elections.
A key to the constitutional structure was the distinction between “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and “within the jurisdiction” in the Equal Protection Clause. The latter isn’t limited to citizens, as the Privileges or Immunities Clause is, but applies to all persons.
That rests on Blackstone’s explicit distinction between “local” and “natural” allegiance. The former requires all persons to respect the criminal and civil law while in a foreign nation, but ceases to bind them on their departure. Local allegiance never confers any opportunity to obtain citizenship, which natural allegiance does. The chief justice incorrectly collapses the two into one by writing that “the Citizenship Clause uses jurisdiction in its ordinary sense—referring to the power of the United States to govern those within its territory.” The Equal Protection Clause had nothing to do with citizenship. How could the 14th Amendment confer automatic birthright citizenship when the 1870 statute set out more-rigorous conditions to apply for naturalization?
Against this background, U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) wrongly held that birthright citizenship attached to a man born in the U.S. whose Chinese parents were legally resident in the U.S. In so holding, Justice Horace Gray committed three major blunders. First, the Naturalization Acts then didn’t make Asians eligible for citizenship until after 1900. Second, Wong Kim Ark traveled on a Chinese passport and thus hadn’t renounced his former sovereign. Third, an elaborate set of treaties with China prevented any Chinese national from applying for U.S. citizenship.
All these arguments are found in my friend-of-the-court brief, written with Benjamin Flowers; in my extensive comments on the oral argument; and in my recent book, “The Myth of Birthright Citizenship.” The chief justice found it all too comfortable to ignore every objection.
Mr. Epstein is a professor of law and NYU Law School, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago and a Senior Fellow at Civitas Institute.
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Trump won't renew his best agreement ever made with Canada and Mexico lol
U.S. won’t renew USMCA, opening door for negotiations with Canada and Mexico
... The USMCA was negotiated during Trump’s first term to replace the previous, 26-year-old trilateral trade pact known as NAFTA, which Trump frequently excoriated as a raw deal for the U.S.
When the new deal came into effect in July 2020, Trump touted it as “the fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.” ...
No good deed goes unpunished in the Democrat Party: Diana DeGette, House leader for the public option in 2009 instead of the Senate's Rube Goldberg Obamacare, defeated in primary after 15 terms
It was Speaker Nancy Pelosi who abandoned the House progressives in 2009, bowing to the Senate plan.
DeGette was progressive before progressive was cool, but now you have to pass the anti-semitic litmus test, as her opponent has, to be a real progressive.
DeGette loses reelection bid to DSA challenger in major upset for Denver-based House seat
Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) lost her reelection bid to former attorney and current Ph.D. student Melat Kiros, marking the third time a democratic socialist has scored an upset in a competitive House primary this cycle, according to Decision Desk HQ.
Kiros, who studies at the University of Denver, defeated DeGette, who’s served in Congress since 1997 — delivering a major blow to the Democratic establishment despite the fact that DeGette herself was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. University of Colorado Regent Wanda James also ran in the Democratic primary.
... Kiros was fired from her law firm after she wrote a letter directed at U.S. law firms on her Substack in November 2023 in which she disputed the notion that it was antisemitic to call for the state of Israel to be eliminated or criticize Israel’s government.
The former lawyer has also received criticism for declining to say whether or not a 2025 firebombing in Boulder, where protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas were injured, was an act of antisemitism, saying in a recent interview with 9News, “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator.” ...
Leon Pancetta: Putin on the ropes
Panetta: Putin ‘not quite sure what to do’ after Ukraine drones strike Moscow
... Panetta, who led the Pentagon during former President Obama’s administration, told NewsNation’s Leland Vittert on “On Balance” that he does not “think there’s any question” that Putin is, as Vittert asked, “on the ropes.”
“I just think that it’s clear right now that Putin is cornered in this situation and is not quite sure what to do,” Panetta said. “He obviously ought to, frankly, negotiate some kind of ceasefire, but knowing Putin, he will continue to resist that, and Russia is going to pay the price.”
He later added that the “most important” assistance that the U.S. can provide Ukraine is “whatever it needs in terms of weaponry so Ukraine can present a bigger threat to Russia,” which will “send a message to Putin” and lead to Russia losing the four-year war.”
Panetta said it was critical that President Trump “stand up to a tyrant like Putin.”
“Putin’s not going to win under any circumstances,” Panetta continued. “It would be smart for the president to pick the side that is going to win this war, and that is Ukraine.” ...
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Middle East tanker transits June 23-29, 2026 from JMIC Update 065: Strait of Hormuz 17.6/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 16.0/day
SoH E: 10.4/day
SoH W: 7.1/day
BAM SE: 8.3/day
BAM NW: 7.7/day
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. ...
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