Friday, May 15, 2026
Speaking of corruption, Trump makes Biden & Co., Clinton & Co., et alia, look like pikers
Democrats blast Trump over ‘slush fund’ in possible IRS lawsuit settlement
... “This administration is dripping with corruption from top to bottom, but rushing a settlement to steal $1.7 billion taxpayer dollars for a slush fund before a judge can toss your junk lawsuit would be among the most corrupt acts in American political history,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
“This lawsuit has never been anything more than a shakedown of the American people by a crook president and his crook lawyers,” Wyden said.
Trump, his two eldest sons, and his family business sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida over the 2019 leak of the president’s tax returns. It was an unprecedented move that raised concerns about conflicts of interest at the time. ...
News of the potential settlement comes ahead of a May 20 deadline set by U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, who asked the Justice Department and Trump’s legal team to explain whether the case with the president on both sides can even be heard by a federal court.
″(A)lthough President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction,” Williams wrote in a court filing in April.
“It is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy” the constitutional requirement that federal cases only adjudicate cases or controversies. ...
Trump cares as little for freedom in Taiwan as he does in Ukraine
Trump told Xi ‘I don’t talk about’ whether U.S. would defend Taiwan from China
Biden meanwhile publicly committed to the defense of Taiwan right out of the gate in 2021 after a U.S. freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea by the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in late January, and multiple times thereafter in 2021, 2022, and 2024.
Trump is truly disgraceful.
Barron's/AFP, Feb 5, 2021:
... The new US administration has said its commitment to Taiwan is "rock-solid," with officials in Washington signalling that they will not tolerate any expansionist moves by Beijing. ...
Hey, when does Starmer resign anyway?
... Britain’s government bonds have the highest yields in the G7. ...
There is almost nothing Athenian about China, nor Spartan about the United States
But here we are.
Does THE GRAUNIAD even know that Sparta won that war?
Does Xi?
Meanwhile "Make America Great Again" handed our adversaries the rhetorical cudgel of decline wielded by Xi against Trump.
America is great when it stands for human freedom, something Trump is too shallow to grasp. The very word strikes terror into the hearts of the Chicoms, and is our greatest weapon against them.
But under Trump America has betrayed freedom in Ukraine, and acted more like imperial Athens in the Persian Gulf than like Sparta.
The attack on Iran is looking more and more like the failed Sicilian Expedition every day.
Aftermath: Trump Is Wrecking the U.S. Military
If Xi wants to win, he'll act more like Sparta and let the real Athens destroy itself.
Honda to reverse EV missteps at a cost of $9 billion amid lost focus on its famed gasoline engines
Honda shares rise over 7% as investors shrug off first operating loss in nearly 70 years
... Honda swung to an operating loss of 414.3 billion yen ($2.61 billion) for the fiscal year ending March, compared to an operating profit of 1.2 trillion yen the year prior. Provisions made for its ailing electric vehicle business and related investments, competition from its Chinese rivals, as well as a U.S. tariff impact of 346.9 billion yen weighed on its earnings.
... As part of its efforts to reorganize its EV business, the automaker said it will cancel market launches and development of some EV models initially planned for production in North America. The Japanese automaker said it expects the restructure of its EV business to cost over $9 billion.
... Honda engines used by Aston Martin were found to be causing battery failures and in January the Japanese automaker was slapped with a lawsuit in Canada over a defect in the 1.5L turbocharged engine in three Honda models. ...
The good news is you can still get the 2-liter four cylinder gasoline non-turbo engine in the base Civic, MSRP $26,345, with a theoretical highway range of 508 miles.
Thursday, May 14, 2026
From JMIC Update 45: Bab-el-Mandeb Strait tanker transits average 13.42/day May 7-13, 2026
Strait of Hormuz 1.57/day.
BAM tanker transits aren't even up to 2022's average of 30/day. The crisis of the oil trade is not being significantly ameliorated by Red Sea operations.
Estimates continue to put 5 million barrels per day leaving Yanbu, much of it heading to buyers in east Asia.
Fujairah in the UAE exports shy of 2 million barrels per day, also to the east.
Iran's exports in April are said to be shy of 1 million barrels per day.
Kuwait exported nothing.
Iraq exported maybe 0.131 million barrels per day.
So 8.1 million barrels per day in April?
21.0 million barrels per day left the region in 2022.
Herr Kurt Schlichter's hit piece on Thomas Massie says Massie married a leftist after his long-time wife died in 2024, when she was actually a staffer for Senator Rand Paul
 |
| "No heat" Massie's 2021 Christmas Card Photo |
And Rand Paul once again strongly endorses Massie's re-election.
Good Riddance to the Awful Thomas Massie
... Before his wife sadly died young a couple of years ago, he was content to be a fringe weirdo with bad hair and no heat. Once she tragically passed away, he visited a hairstylist, married a leftist staffer 20 years his junior, and decided he needed to broaden his horizons, which meant helping the Democrats and shafting the GOP more openly than before. ...
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Kevin Warsh confirmed as Fed chair 54-45 by the US Senate, takes over from Powell on Friday
Kevin Warsh wins Senate confirmation as the next Federal Reserve chair
... In the most divisive vote ever for a Fed chair, Warsh, 56, won confirmation to take over for Jerome Powell, who has served in the top leadership position since 2018 and whose term will expire Friday.
The Senate voted 54-45 to confirm Warsh, ending a months long saga that began in the summer of 2025 and included an extensive search for Powell’s successor. The vote was almost completely along party lines, with only Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman crossing over to vote for Warsh, who becomes the 11th Fed chair of the modern banking era.
Powell will stay on at the Fed as he has two years left in his term as governor. ...
CNBC doesn't really want to talk about how bad April's increase in wholesale prices was, doesn't mention the year over year increase to core, stripping out food and energy, at 5.2%
Wholesale inflation jumps 6% in April on annual basis, biggest increase since 2022
... The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022.
On an annual basis, the index was up 6%, the biggest increase since December 2022.
Excluding food and energy, the core PPI accelerated 1%, compared with the 0.4% estimate. ...
While much of the inflation move has been attributed to the war and President Donald Trump’s tariffs that were introduced a year ago, the PPI data shows the price pressures were broad-based. ...
I'll say.
Looks to me like producers giving us all the middle finger.
I expect new record high corporate profits.
Adjusted for consumer price index inflation since October 2019, a traditional American breakfast should cost you 29.4% more in April 2026, instead it's 54.9% more!
29.4% more is bad enough, right?
The ingredients for a traditional American breakfast in April 2026, adjusted for consumer price index inflation since October 2019, should cost $29.91.
Instead they cost $35.79, $23.11 plus 54.9%.
Menu: Bacon and eggs, whole wheat toast with butter, coffee with milk and sugar, and a glass of orange juice.
The Biden high for all this was $33.20 in January 2023.
The all-time high to date was in March 2025 under Trump at $37.67.
The April 2026 Trump price is still 7.8% higher than the Biden high three-plus years ago.
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