Former PM Shinzo Abe was shot and killed in Japan, where handguns are banned.
Friday, July 8, 2022
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Famous last words: Recession "not expected"
- The economy is expected to have added 250,000 jobs in June, a strong number though lower than the 390,000 in May, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
Boris Johnson done-in by testicles not his own
Johnson
was ultimately undone by his response to fallout from the resignation
last Thursday of deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, amid allegations
Pincher had groped two guests at a private dinner the night before.
While he did not admit the allegations directly, Pincher said in a
letter to Johnson last week that "last night I drank far too much" and
"embarrassed myself and other people." Other historical allegations of
misconduct by Pincher emerged in the ensuing days.
Johnson
initially denied being aware of some of those allegations, but
ultimately the Prime Minister was forced to admit he had been briefed
years before and apologize for his decision-making.
It
was the final straw for many political allies who had supported Johnson
through crisis after crisis over the years. In recent months the Prime
Minister had been facing a barrage of criticism from all sides over his
conduct and that of his government, including illegal, lockdown-breaking
parties thrown in his Downing Street offices, for which he and others
were fined.
More.
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
This is as good a day as any to remember that Ben Bernanke's Fed under Obama bailed out the banksters and hung 6.5 million homeowners out to dry
Bloomberg, August 21, 2011, here:
Fed
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy
from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies
as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S.
homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed
mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley, got as much as $107.3
billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4
billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained
through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an
act of Congress. ...
Homeowners
are more than 30 days past due on their mortgage payments on 4.38
million properties in the U.S., and 2.16 million more properties are in
foreclosure, representing a combined $1.27 trillion of unpaid principal,
estimates Jacksonville, Florida-based Lender Processing Services Inc. ...
Congress required the disclosure after the Fed rejected requests in 2008
from the late Bloomberg News reporter Mark Pittman and other media
companies that sought details of its loans under the Freedom of
Information Act. After fighting to keep the data secret, the central
bank released unprecedented information about its discount window and
other programs under court order in March 2011.
Legalize mental and mental will trickle down
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law in June 2019 legalizing the recreational use of cannabis by adults, including retail sales beginning on Jan. 1, 2020. The following article covers Illinois' current cannabis laws with summaries of provisions under these laws.
More.
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
Damn fool Biden administration releases crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to reduce fuel prices, 5 million barrels get exported abroad last month, including to China
More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month . . ..
Inflation hits new record in Europe, Reuters begins to tell the truth about why
But they save it for the last paragraph, which probably no one reads.
At minus 0.5%, the ECB's deposit rate has been in negative territory since 2014.
The contemplated interest rate hikes are laughably small, and laughably timed for later.
"The house is on fire and we'll get around to sending out a crew next week".
Monday, July 4, 2022
All it took was Russia invading Ukraine for countries to junk the Paris climate agreement and begin a desperate frenzy for coal
Coal Makes Comeback as World Thirsts for Energy...
Countries
are rejiggering distribution channels to obtain more coal from other
big suppliers such as Australia and the U.S., but that takes time and
money, said Gerben Hieminga, senior energy-sector economist for Dutch
bank ING Groep.
“The whole world is doing this,” Mr. Hieminga said.
Saturday, July 2, 2022
Climate Update for KGRR: 2Q2022
Climate Update for KGRR: 2Q2022
Spring was just 1.2% warmer than the mean by average temperature, on the strength of slightly higher highs and higher lows, and only 3% wetter than usual.
Average Temperature: 58.1
Mean Average Temperature: 57.4
Rain: 10.68
Mean Rain: 10.37
Snow (official season end +6.6%): 71
Mean: 66.6
Heating Degree Days (official season end -6.2%): 6282
Mean: 6694
Cooling Degree Days through June: 250
Mean: 184
Maximum temperatures vs. mean in 2Q
Apr: 82/79
May: 87/86
Jun: 95/91
Minimum temperatures vs. mean in 2Q
Apr: 23/22
May: 36/32
Jun: 45/43
US COVID-19: The Big Picture through June 2022
Deaths per day in 2022 through June are now down to 1,050 as June has flatlined relative to May with 363 deaths per day vs. 373.
But contrast those admittedly welcome figures with influenza deaths per day 2010-2020 at about 93 on average and even at this much improved level COVID deaths are still ~4x higher.
Trying to learn anything from the case data is increasingly difficult due to increased self-testing at home, but it looks clear that cases are up again as Omicron sub variants mutate to be more spreadable.
Total cases monthly in 2022:
Jan 20.3 million
Feb 3.95m
Mar 1.07m
Apr 1.25m
May 2.89m
Jun 3.33m.
It makes sense that deaths are at their lowest in 2022 in May and June with cases at their lowest in March and April since deaths are a lagging indicator. The case increases in May and June portend higher death figures come July and August.
We averaged 1.68 million cases monthly in 2020, and 2.88 million monthly in 2021. Monthly cases in 1H2022 average 5.46 million.
US COVID-19 deaths per day in 2022 through June
June 2022: 363
May 2022: 373
Apr 2022: 426
Mar 2022: 980
Feb 2022: 2,247
Jan 2022: 1,987
Friday, July 1, 2022
A "political" Supreme Court which is "balanced" is wishy washy precisely because it is a function of an Executive branch hamstrung by the 22nd Amendment
This never occurs to Hugo for some reason.
A Court system which depends on the transient figure of the president for its existence can hardly be anything but political. That's where the fetish for political balance on the Court comes from. It is simply an extension of the overweening impulse to limit the Executive power. And it's not a coincidence that the loudest voices for it come from the Legislative. It's an expression of their tyranny over everything.
Of course the Supreme Court is a political institution.
It is appointed by an elected president, and confirmed by an elected Senate. But it is the two term limit which sharpens its tip, raising the stakes over every appointment.
The Court has become more political precisely because the political power of the Executive which appoints it has been limited. It's how the wronged Executive manages to live on, long after he has been forced from the scene. He routinely runs for office partly on the promise to partisans that he will make the right appointments to the bench.
If the Framers had intended the Executive to be hamstrung in this way while the other two branches were not, they would have said so.
The people have the right to elect whomever to the presidency as often as they wish, just as they have the right to return Nancy Pelosi to the US House year after year. They also have the right to get rid of the bum if they don't like his appointments. Anything less gives too much power to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, and to the judges he leaves behind.
The way to improve constancy of meaning on the Court and consistency in the rule of law is to improve both in the Executive.
We aren't going to be saved by a Court which has temporarily recovered its senses. They could just as well lose them again. And they'll also still be there, long after the president who appointed them is gone.
Who checks the Court?
Thursday, June 30, 2022
The New York Times says "places with higher vaccination rates have suffered many fewer Covid deaths", but those places are also much less densely populated
The New York Times, David "masks work and mandates often don't" Leonhardt, May 31, 2022, here:
After
all, the effect of vaccines on severe illness is blazingly obvious in
the geographic data: Places with higher vaccination rates have suffered many fewer Covid deaths.
The patterns are clear even though the world is a messy place, with
many factors other than vaccines influencing Covid death rates.
This is correct, as far as it goes.
The 21 US states in the lower 48 with the lowest daily new deaths per 100,000 of population to date have a vax rate averaging north of 69%. The 21 with the highest daily new deaths per 100k to date have a vax rate averaging not quite 62%.
The death rate to date in those more vaxxed states averages more than 36% lower per 100k of population, 0.28 vs. 0.44/100k.
But is that caused by the almost 12% higher vaccination rate?
What if it's something else?
Population per square mile in those higher vaxxed states with the lowest death rates averages 24% less dense than in the ones suffering the highest death rates, 185 vs. 243/sq.mi. Those states enjoy, for whatever reasons, a pre-existing condition of "social distance" which the highest death rate states do not.
I say 24% trumps 12% in the debate over cause.
"Many factors other than vaccines", or masks, mask mandates, or mask compliance rates, influence "Covid death rates".
The Fed has raised the Fed Funds interest rate to 1.58% and the celebrity investors are squealing like stuck pigs, too
Paul Volcker was Fed Chair from 1979 to 1987.
His peak average Fed Funds Rate was north of 16% in 1981.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Michael Anton may be right that National Review's Reductio ad Hitlerum is relatively recent, but NR has been ostracizing right-wingers since it was founded
I stopped reading in 2008, after subscribing since about 1980, so I really don't know about the Nazi smears. I had a long paid-up subscription which I was relieved to have finally run-out, coincidentally when Buckley did.
At any rate, National Review is indeed the enemy in the Socratic sense.
Don't help them.
LOL, "bombshell" testimony against Trump is mere hearsay, says her own lawyer in this tweet
You're not hearing THAT reported today.
What a bunch of frauds and losers.
The price of NATO membership for Sweden and Finland is for them to throw the Kurds under the bus to please Turkey
Same as it ever was.
The Kurds have been pretty much voiceless in the West since Winston Churchill first threw them under the bus in 1919 and used British air forces to attack them, advocating eventually that Turkey be given control of northern Iraq.
NATO members once more are ignoring Turkey’s role against the Kurds. This concerns internal Kurdish oppression in Turkey, bombing the PKK and Yazidis in Northern Iraq and killing and cleansing Kurds in Northern Syria. ...
NATO, the European Union, and the G7 anti-Russian Federation alliance ignore human rights in Turkey and the fact that this nation is occupying two nations (Northern Cyprus and Northern Syria) – while also bombing Kurds and Yazidis in another nation (Iraq). At the same time, the EU and G7 seek Saudi Arabia to increase energy production. Therefore, ignoring the conflict in Yemen: the Saudi Arabia-led war that has been bombing this nation for many years (weapons bought from America, France, and the United Kingdom).
The Kurds are perennially thrown under the American and NATO bus. Hence, Finland and Sweden are set to join the anti-Kurdish power plays of NATO before even being accepted.
More.
Inflation in Europe is at record levels but its central banking fools are talking about paltry quarter and half-point increases to interest rates
There's ample room to hike because Europe's idiots lowered rates effectively to zero in the first place and kept them there for years, and they are taking their sweet time about raising them just a little bit, same as in the US.
Meanwhile the people get punished mercilessly with the inflation tax.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
LOL, Danish parents furious after vaccine announcement from Søren Brostrøm, Director General of the Danish Health Authority
Søren Brostrøm admitted on Wednesday that we "in retrospect did not get much out of the expansion of the vaccination program for children - at least not when it comes to epidemic control, which was otherwise the purpose of doing so. We have become wiser and we would not do the same today". ...
In June 2021, the National Board of Health chose to recommend corona vaccines for children aged 12-15 years. In November, a recommendation followed to also vaccinate children aged 5-11 years. ...
Søren Brostrøm admits to TV 2 that it all "went very fast" when the vaccine program was rolled out in Denmark. ...
"I understand well that there are some who think: 'Okay, here is an authority that now admits that they have made a mistake or that they would have done something else'. I understand that. But I would like to ask people to consider whether they would rather have had an authority that does not admit its mistakes?"
The whole thing in Danish is here.
Too bad we don't have a health authority in the United States which admits its mistakes.
Monday, June 27, 2022
Someone who takes her libertarianism far too seriously is haunted by a hobgoblin, amusingly faults so-called folk libertarians for inconsistency and channels her inner liberal Lionel Trilling to jeer at their "irritated" jerking
Real libertarianism like hers is a creature of liberalism and the left, not of the right, and so is primarily critical in nature, distinguishing as she does no fewer than five different types in her short polemical foray against Ron DeSantis.
Put a hundred of these people in a room and none will find another person with whom to agree about libertarianism, except maybe that the buffet was OK.
In The Daily Beast here:
Yet even linking this impulse to that new center may suggest a more formal political program than folk libertarianism entails. Douthat characterized it as “a reflexive individualism disconnected from the common good,” and the reflex is fundamentally reactive, a series of irritated jerks away from unwanted strictures as they come. Folk libertarians have “an instinctive dislike of being bossed around,” as my former colleague Samuel Goldman has observed in The Week, but they lack the broader principle of opposition to bossing others.
Democrat Senator Crockagawea Warren's solution to the Supreme Court's so-called "lost legitimacy" is to pack it and make it even more illegitimate
It's always helpful to see the lunacy of Democrats put on public display by themselves while at the same time providing the people with further evidence of their complete disloyalty to America and its institutions:
This court has lost legitimacy. They have burned whatever legitimacy
they may still have had after their gun decision, after their voting
decision, after their union decision. They just took the last of it and
set a torch to it with the Roe v. Wade opinion. I believe we need to get
some confidence back in our court, and that means we need more justices
on the United States Supreme Court.
Lindsey Grahamnesty basically tells Democrats that if it weren't for Dingy Harry Reid changing Senate rules Roe would still be the law of the land
This is an odd argument for a conservative to make, hinting at nostalgia as it does for the status quo ante, but Lindsey isn't one, so there it is and here we are.
Sunday, June 26, 2022
LOL Bank for International Settlements: "Yeah, we've only been just asking for high global inflation with our insane low rates for 15 years nonstop, but Nah, we're not too late to the game of reversing it"
The world’s central bank umbrella body, the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS), has called for interest rates to be raised “quickly
and decisively” to prevent the surge in inflation turning into something
even more problematic. ...
“The key for central banks is to act quickly and decisively before inflation becomes entrenched,” Agustín Carstens, BIS general manager, said as part of the body’s post-meeting annual report. ...
World markets are already suffering one of the biggest sell-offs in recent memory as heavyweight central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve - and from next month the ECB - move away from record low rates and almost 15 years of back-to-back stimulus measures. ...
“Yes, you can argue a little bit here about an error of timing of certain actions and the responses of the central banks. But by and large, I think that the central banks have responded forcefully in a very agile fashion,” Carstens said.
More.
Yeah, inflation is so tame in the Euro Area the ECB is waiting to move until "next month".
Mark Levin had Senator Mike Lee on the show on Friday, called him a national treasure
You remember Mike Lee, libertarian open borders squish.
He's the guy who shepherded through the Trump crime reform bill, otherwise known as the get out of jail free card, which Trump signed in December 2018, about 18 months before the country blew up in a wave of rioting, looting, and violent crime.
He's also the guy who proposed Merrick Garland for FBI Director, who as Attorney General is responsible for investigating moms and pops going to school board meetings for terrorism, among other excesses at the behest of demented Uncle Joe.
I turn on the show for the first time in weeks and that's what I get. It's like never playing darts but hitting the bullseye every time I do.
Levin is nothing if not consistently wrong.
Saturday, June 25, 2022
Biden administration's Kerry Doyle is unlawfully granting illegal immigration amnesty to tens of thousands of the 2 million backlogged immigration cases by simply dismissing them
The Washington Examiner obtained leaked video recordings of virtual meetings that Kerry Doyle, ICE's principal legal adviser, held with the more than 1,200 ICE prosecutors who bring cases against illegal immigrants nationwide, in which she explained in detail who should not be targeted for deportation. Illegal immigrants identified as national security and public safety threats, or those who had crossed the border illegally after Nov. 1, 2020, would be the only cases ICE would pursue. All others would be dropped. ...
“Congress hasn’t passed it, but [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas’s chief lawyer at ICE is telling all prosecutors to dismiss cases. Once it’s dismissed, they’re not required to check in with you anymore," said the ICE federal prosecutor who spoke with the Washington Examiner on the condition of anonymity. ...
The tens of thousands of noncitizens who have been cleared from the immigration court dockets over the past eight weeks may now apply to become permanent legal residents, the prerequisite to becoming a U.S. citizen. An illegal border crosser is barred from applying for legal permanent residency as long as his or her case is pending in court. With no case pending, they may apply. Once approved, they may apply for adjustment of status to citizenship after five years.
More.
This is The Swamp in action.
LOL Boris Johnson, leader of Britain's "conservatives"
"It's a very important decision. I've got to tell you, I think it's a big step backwards," he told a news conference in Kigali, where he is attending a Commonwealth meeting. "I've always believed in a woman's right to choose and I stick to that view and that is why the UK has the laws that it does."
Reuters, here.
Friday, June 24, 2022
The abortion ban in Wisconsin is 124 years older than the so-called 50-year-old constitutional right which breached that core rule-of-law principle in the first place
Supremes end protections for abortion in place for half century...
In Wisconsin, which has an 1849 abortion ban on the books, Planned Parenthood immediately halted all scheduled abortions at its clinics in Madison and Milwaukee following the high court’s ruling. ...
The liberal justices ... in their joint dissent: The majority “eliminates a 50-year-old constitutional right that safeguards women’s freedom and equal station. It breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law. In doing all of that, it places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the Court’s legitimacy.”
It's pretty clear whose side Drudge is on from the way he worded the linked html:
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-supreme-court-decision-854f60302f21c2c35129e58cf8d8a7b0
LOL, one of Scotty Kilmer's worst cars ever made has Bernie stickers all over it
Bernie isn't for sale, and neither is the PT Cruiser.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence.
Thursday, June 23, 2022
Andrew Gillum, erstwhile opponent of Ron DeSantis, indicted "for funneling donations through third parties back to himself for personal use"
AP Obama reports here.
FBI agents were involved as posers, however.
Can't law enforcement catch anyone fair and square anymore?
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
The Forehead, dunderheaded liberal, says goodbye to Mark Shields, but can't get the pronoun right
So, I thank you, Mark. As your fellow Marines say, "Semper Fi." And as our fellow Catholics say, "Pax Vobiscum."
Here.
"Tecum", Paul.
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
Emmanuel Macron's plans for tax cuts, welfare reform, and raising the retirement age thwarted by resurgent right under LePen and left under Mélenchon in France
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, June 19, lost his absolute majority after major election gains by a newly formed left-wing alliance and a historic breakthrough for the far right, in a stunning blow to his hopes of major reform in his second term.
The run-off election was decisive for Mr. Macron's second-term agenda following his re-election in April, with the 44-year-old needing a majority to secure promised tax cuts and welfare reform and raise the retirement age. ...
The expected number of seats for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National (90) amounts to a historic breakthrough. Only once under the Fifth Republic had the far right passed the threshold to form a group in the Assemblée (15 MPs), which allows for certain parliamentary resources and prerogatives.
More here at LeMonde.
Monday, June 20, 2022
This story blames climate change for homeless deaths, never once mentions the families who abandon them and the role played by drug abuse in their homelessness
Sweltering streets: Hundreds of homeless die in extreme heat
One family, which presumably lived in a home where they presumably wrote the obituary and where the woman could have stayed temporarily, blames "the system" for the death of their homeless sister:
When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits.
Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures.
“We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it,” Tricia Wright said of her sister. “But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat.”
Housing market conditions update, now vs. then
Housing market conditions, now vs. then:
Average borrower FICO score today: 751
In 2010: 699
Underwater today: virtually none (2.5% with less than 10% equity)
In 2011: more than 1 in 4 underwater (25% plus)
Today: 2.5 million ARMs (8% of mortgages)
In 2007: 13.1 million ARMs (36% of mortgages)
Facing resets today: 1.4 million ARMs (56%)
In 2007: 10 million (76%)
Housing remains as unaffordable as ever. The cost of the median new one is up a whopping 45% in April 2022 vs. April 2020, to $450,600.
Sunday, June 19, 2022
Saturday, June 18, 2022
Friday, June 17, 2022
What rot from AP Obama: "Watergate and Jan. 6 are rooted in the same ancient thirst for power at any cost"
"Two presidents tried an end run around democracy."
Give me a break.
Presidents are term-limited by the constitution. Even if by hook or by crook one of them managed to steal his reelection, out he goes after that because it says so. Everyone agrees with this. No one questions it. No president would get away with staying in office one day longer than the second term permits.
If you want to see the ancient thirst for power, look at the Seniority list for the US House.
Some of those placeholders have been holding on to power there for decades.
Seven go back to the 1980s.
Thirty-eight go back to the 1990s.
Sixty-eight go back to the 2000s.
They've watched presidents come and go since Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton.
Of the top fifty by seniority, just eleven are Republicans.
Of the top 113, just thirty-eight are Republicans.
75 remaining senior Democrats are the foundation in the House of the people pressing their power hungry vendetta against the private citizen, Donald Trump. They are also the foundation in the House of the people robbing Americans blind and putting the country $30 trillion in debt.
What we have is a tyranny of the legislative. An imperial presidency isn't even in sight.
The only coup in view is the cuckoo who wrote this story.
In an election year, the votes of the bottom 90% count a lot more than the campaign contributions of the rich, who own 89% of the stonks
Lucky for you inflation is raging in an election year, otherwise they'd pretend to take this seriously even less than they are.
US COVID-19 deaths per day in June 2022 to date have flatlined: As good as it gets?
June 2022 (15th): 372
May 2022: 373
Apr 2022: 426
Mar 2022: 980
Feb 2022: 2247
Jan 2022: 1987
Thursday, June 16, 2022
Every damn time: Man armed with "A Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light and duct tape" indicted for attempted murder of Kavanaugh "was on doctor-prescribed medication"
He was arrested "without incident" after allegedly calling authorities to tell them he was suicidal and wanted to kill Kavanaugh, police have said. ... During an appearance in U.S. District Court later on June 8, Roske told Judge Timothy Sullivan that he thought he had a "reasonable understanding" of the attempted murder charge, though he told the court he wasn't thinking clearly and was on doctor-prescribed medication.
More.
Seems like he was thinking pretty clearly based on what he decided to bring to the show.
No word in the story if he brought extra socks and a change of underwear.
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