Monday, July 13, 2026
So Trump isn't really worried about a global recession triggered by high energy prices after all
Brent oil jumps more than 9%, biggest daily gain since 2020, after Trump reinstates Iran blockade
... Brent crude futures advanced 9.6% to close at $83.30 per barrel. It was the international benchmark’s best daily performance since May 2020. West Texas Intermediate futures gained 9.4% to settle at $78.14. ...
Trump's protection racket in the Strait of Hormuz effectively blockades the good guys, violates international law same as Iran
UN maritime agency opposes Hormuz transit fees after Trump demands protection money
The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, said Monday that it opposes transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz after President Donald Trump demanded that ships pay protection money.
“We have always been consistent on our stance on fees – IMO stands firmly against charging fees for passage through straits used for international navigation,” a spokesperson said.
“There is no legal basis through which to introduce mandatory tolls simply to transit through a strait,” the spokesperson said.
... Tolls to transit Hormuz are against international law, said James Kraska, an expert on international maritime law at the U.S. Naval War College. The world has an unimpeded right to transit Hormuz, Kraska said. ...
New ICE M/O uses threat of suspect-vehicle-ramming-unmarked-ICE-vehicle as an excuse to murder victims #8 in Texas and #9 in Maine
Different leadership at DHS, same murderous Trump as before.
Elect Democrats and impeach his ass.
Witness says Biddeford shooting victim told police ‘I tried to stop’
Daniel Boucher was getting ready for work Monday morning when he heard what sounded like fireworks going off outside of his home near downtown Biddeford.
He rushed to the window, where he saw an SUV trying to ram a small white car in the intersection. Moments later, agents in vests stopped the car and pulled the driver out.
“He was bleeding profusely from the head,” Boucher said later Monday morning. “He was talking. He said, ‘I tried to stop.'”
Boucher watched in disbelief as the man’s legs stopped moving as he lay on the ground. He believes he watched him die. ...
After Biddeford police and an ambulance arrived, Boucher said he saw someone appear to start CPR on the driver. Boucher went out to his front door, where the ICE agent he believed fired the shots walked past him.
“I said ‘This was awful’ and he said, ‘He was trying to ram me,'” Boucher said. ...
Incompetent organized crime boss imposes protection fees on Strait of Hormuz cargo which he will also blockade
The tyrant is the real slave. He is mastered by a whole host of conflicting desires, none of which he is therefore able to in any way satisfy.
Trump proposes 20% toll on cargo through Strait of Hormuz; restarts Iran blockade
President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will impose fees in the Strait of Hormuz “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped,” after declaring America’s role as the “guardian” of the major oil-shipping route. ... Trump’s post asserts that commercial vessels attempting the transit must now pay protection money to the U.S. ...
“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’” he claimed. “But as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”
“The process and formation will begin immediately,” he added. ...
Sunday, July 12, 2026
Middle East tanker transits July 5-12, 2026 per JMIC Update 070
SoH: 10.0/day
SoH E: 6.3/day
SoH W: 3.7/day
BAM: 14.7/day
BAM SE: 7.3/day
BAM NW: 7.4/day
Lindsey Graham is dead and Mitch McConnell is sitting up, taking nourishment, and smiling with his wife
Sen. Lindsey Graham, influential lawmaker and Trump ally, dies at 71 after a brief illness
... Graham’s death was the result of aortic dissection due to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to the Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia’s preliminary findings, a statement released by his office said. ...
McConnell provides health update after long unexplained absence; says he suffered fall, pneumonia
... ″[L]ast month, I took a fall which landed me in the hospital,” McConnell said in the statement to his constituents. “My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages. But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital.”
The former Senate GOP leader said he also “had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia” while in the hospital. In a photo released with his statement, McConnell is holding a copy of the Sports section of the July 12 edition of The Washington Post. ...
Saturday, July 11, 2026
The first half of 2026 is falling far short of a new golden age for workers, and isn't even as good as 2019
The worst indicator is full time employment, which is running more than 2 points behind Trump's best showing in the second half of 2019. Just 48.65% had a full time job in 1H2026, and the high pre-Great Recession levels look more unachievable than ever. It is summer time and this is when we should be feeling the purported boom most acutely and we are not.
On a similar semiannual average basis, nearly 400k more workers than at the lows in 2019 want to work but are so discouraged they have dropped out. The spread between June 2026 and October 2019 is nearly 600k.
The overall number of unemployed in the first half of 2026 is 1.633 million higher than it was in the second half of 2019, 7.413 million vs. 5.780 million. The level averaged 7.6 million when Trump was elected in 2016.
The broadest measure of unemployment, the U6RATE, is 8%. In the second half of 2019 it was 6.9%, the lowest on record to the time, but Biden beat that in 2022/2023. Are we really not ever going to break Biden's two-time record low of 6.7%?
Was that the golden age?
The thing I worry about most is initial and continuing claims for unemployment. They are both on a run at historic lows.
How much longer can they keep it going like this?
Friday, July 10, 2026
Ukraine can now target just about any Russian fuel tanker at sea and any Russian oil refinery on land whenever it wants, which lately has been daily
Zelenskyy is destroying Russia's ability to make war.
Too bad Donald Trump never does that.
Ukraine escalates attacks on tankers near Crimea as Russian fuel shortages bite
... Ukraine’s drone force commander, Robert Brovdi, known as Magyar, said via Telegram that 14 Russian ships were hit in the Sea of Azov on Thursday evening, taking the number of Russian vessels stuck by Ukrainian drones to 35 over the last 96 hours. CNBC could not independently verify this report.
... Ukraine has frequently targeted high-profile oil refineries in major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg in recent weeks as part of a sustained push to cut off Russia’s energy revenues.
Earlier this week, Ukraine marked what appeared to be one of the country’s deepest attacks on Russian territory in the war so far.
Plumes of black smoke were seen billowing from a key oil refinery in the city of Omsk on Tuesday, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to declare that the country’s upgraded drone capabilities have put Siberia “within reach.”
The Omsk facility is situated nearly 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) from Ukrainian territory and close to Russia’s border with Kazakhstan. ...
In the Michigan U.S. Senate race, progressive Abdul El-Sayed is only half the fascist you think he is, says he's for only 50% public ownership of AI, not 100% lol
O.M.G.
AI, data center fears could be key in closely watched Michigan Democratic Senate primary
... earlier this month, he unveiled a multi-pronged policy to rein-in AI that includes public ownership of the technology, an AI dividend paid to the public, mandatory divestiture of AI developers from major tech companies and a new tax on AI automation.
... McMorrow and other critics have questioned the feasibility of El-Sayed’s proposal, which in addition to 50% public ownership and direct payments to Americans includes expanded unemployment benefits and the establishment of a Food and Drug Administration-style safety testing agency within the federal government to test emerging AI technology.
... El-Sayed brushed off those claims. The farther left plan would be complete ownership, rather than the 50% he is proposing, he countered. ...
Thursday, July 9, 2026
Middle East tanker transits July 2-8, 2026 (I think)
The last two tables in the JMICs have June here and there when they should have July.
JMIC 69 is another one that can't make up its mind what month it is.
SoH: 14.9/day vs. 70 normal
E: 8.6/day
W: 6.3/day
BAM: 13.1/day vs. 30 normal
SE: 6.4/day
NW: 6.7/day
First time claims for unemployment on an average semiannual basis have been below 250k for 79% of the time since 2016 through 1H2026
7.5 years vs. 3.0 years in the late 1960s and the first half of 1973.
Unprecedented in the history of the metric.
30-year mortgages have averaged above 6.00% since August 2022
It will be four consecutive years in September 2026.
Some people think it is significant that U.S. commercial stocks of crude oil increased a little bit week over week to 411.4 million barrels as of 7/3/2026
Well, I don't.
Whenever U.S. commercial companies buy oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at auction, those barrels are subtracted from line three but are added to line two.
It's more complicated than that because some oil might be stored temporarily, or refined into other products which means it shows up on other lines, or it gets exported and shows up there.
The point is sales from SPR distort the U.S. picture, IF those sales are purchased by U.S. commercial companies.
And for March through early July, U. S. commercial companies have purchased AT LEAST 52 million barrels from SPR.
That has distorted the true state of U.S. commercial stocks from week to week throughout the period.
Meanwhile, speaking of distortions . . . where did they get the product for this?
White House touts launch of 25 Freedom Fuel gas stations
... “The FIRST Freedom Fuel Network gas station has LANDED in Philadelphia, lowering the price at the pump to $3.47 for our 47th President,” the White House wrote on the social platform X on Tuesday. ... Twenty of the stations are located in Pennsylvania, while five are in New Jersey, according to the Freedom Fuel network’s website. A White House official told The Hill the Freedom Fuel Network is a private company and did not receive subsidies from the administration. ...
Harold Meyerson: Late-stage American capitalism is the father of the fascist Chinese Party-State
Except Meyerson can't bring himself to use the word fascist, let alone Party-State.
"State capitalist power" is his polite euphemism for fascist power, which leftists who want to be taken seriously still must use apparently, ever since George Orwell said in 1944 that fascism had become a meaningless term, you know, like the words man and woman.
He stops short, too, of saying that there is something suicidal built into the West.
The conservative Oswald Spengler identified that something as Christian theology. He said it was the grandmother of Bolshevism, which is probably why Meyerson doesn't mention it! Don't wanna upset the fascists, the Christians, AND the true believers all at the same time.
But the fact remains that the heirs of Christianity in America have sold the rope to the Chicoms which they will use to hang our children after they are finished impoverishing them.
Meanwhile Utopia still exists for Meyerson, in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, cold, wet, snowy, and dark NATO nations which rely on the American nuclear umbrella for their security.
... there is no such communist power [like the USSR] today.
There’s China, a Leninist-verging-on-tech-infused-Stalinist state capitalist power, but it boasts no virtually ideological adherents either in the States or abroad, and certainly not within the Democratic Socialists of America. It does have spies, and thugs who intimidate dissidents in the Chinese diaspora, but it lacks any support within the actual American left. To be sure, China’s rise to economic world power was fueled by offshoring American companies, but they went to China at the prompting of Wall Street as a way to boost their profit margins, Chinese labor then being dirt cheap. In other words, it was our leading capitalists, rather than any American socialists or communists, who sold out the industrial Midwest. ...
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