Gold Posts New Record

Gold currently trading at ~$3,566 /oz amidst expectations of the Fed cutting interest rates (whether by choice or under presidential coercion), and the risks of a weaker dollar and higher inflation. 

China's navy is the world's largest and expanding at breakneck speed

...Suoyuwan park in Dalian, which juts out of north-eastern China into the Yellow Sea, has stunning views of one of China's largest shipyards, and is a place to gather and be merry.

But to White House analysts thousands of miles away in Washington, this cradle of Chinese shipbuilding is part of a growing threat.

In the last two decades, China has ramped up investment in shipbuilding. And that has paid off: more than 60% of the world's orders this year have gone to Chinese shipyards. Put simply, China is building more ships than any other country because it can do it faster than anyone else.

"The scale is extraordinary… in many ways eye-watering," says Nick Childs, a maritime expert with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. "The Chinese shipbuilding capacity is something like 200 times overall that of the United States."

That commanding lead also applies to its navy. The Chinese Communist Party now has the world's largest, operating 234 warships compared to the US Navy's 219.

China's explosive rise has been fuelled by the sea. The world's second-largest economy is home to seven of the world's 10 busiest ports, which are critical to global supply routes. And its coastal cities are thriving because of trade.

As Beijing's ambitions have grown, so has its arsenal of ships - and its confidence to stake a louder claim in the South China Sea and beyond.

President Xi Jinping's China certainly wants to rule the waves. Whether it will is the question.

Read the rest here.

Largely overlooked in this otherwise good story is the fact that China's navy is concentrated in the Western Pacific. The US Navy is spread all over the world. 

By the Numbers: The slow death of the manual transmission

Just like the trend toward SUVs in the United States throughout the 2000s, there’s another major shift happening that seems unstoppable. Automatic transmissions have become the standard in many markets, threatening the survival of manual transmission cars.

In 2001, almost every passenger car registered in the five major European markets—Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain—had a manual transmission. Data shows that, at that time, cars with manual transmissions accounted for 91 percent of registrations in those five markets. This type of transmission was more popular than the automatic, even among premium and luxury brands.

At that time, the technology was not nearly as advanced as it is today, so high development costs had a direct impact on the final price, and the automatic transmission was more of a luxury feature than anything.

However, as has been the case with airbags and other automotive technologies, gradual adoption has helped reduce cost and price. With traffic growing in large cities and drivers more preoccupied than ever, the automatic transmission is quickly becoming the answer to the new reality.

Last year, cars with manual transmissions accounted for only 29 percent of registrations in the five major European markets. The breakdown between mainstream and premium brands also shows major changes.

In 2001, premium cars with automatic transmissions accounted for 31 percent of sales. By 2024, they reached 97 percent. As for mainstream brands, the change is just as dramatic: The market share of automatic transmission increased from 5 percent in 2001 to 63 percent last year.

Read the rest here.

Mexican (Catholic) bishop faces backlash for con-celebrating Eucharist with Anglican female cleric

A retired Mexican bishop has provoked widespread controversy after he celebrated the Eucharist with an Anglican female minister at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

On the 26 August, Bishop Emeritus Raúl Vera López of Saltillo presided at Mass in the basilica with Rev Emilie Teresa Smith, a Canadian Anglican minister, standing beside him as a concelebrant. During the liturgy, Ms Smith, wearing a stole (a liturgical vestment), joined in parts of the Eucharistic Prayer, whispered words of consecration, raised her hand in blessing and elevated the chalice containing the Precious Blood of Christ.

The Mass was recorded and published on the bishop’s own Facebook page, where it quickly gained attention. In a post accompanying the video, the bishop invited viewers to “reflect together” on the Gospel of the day, quoting the words of Christ in St Matthew’s Gospel condemning hypocrisy and spiritual blindness.

He described Ms Smith as one “who walks among us picking up the word of many people around finding solutions to the climate crisis we live in".

The event caused shock among Catholics both in Mexico and internationally, with many describing the event as sacrilegious. Critics of the bishop's actions said that the presence of a female Anglican minister at the altar during the Eucharist is a clear violation of Catholic teaching on both the ordained priesthood and intercommunion with non-Catholics.

The bishop emeritus attempted to defend his actions with a second Facebook post: he recounted how, after Mass on the following day, he had been questioned by journalists about whether canonical sanctions might follow. Bishop Vera explained that Ms Smith was a fellow co-chair of the international solidarity network SICSAL, who was passing through Coahuila on route to the COP 30 environmental summit and had accepted his invitation to take part in the Mass at the basilica.

He dismissed accusations of sacrilege, heresy and indiscipline as “common sense” misunderstandings, noting that Ms Smith had long been active in human rights and pastoral work, with experience as a parish minister and theologian.

“Not only does she work with the poor, she has a parish, has a theological background, she is a writer, she is ready to participate in a meeting of the United Nations and with God’s people around the defence of our Mother Earth,” he wrote. He also praised her homily as “excellent”.

“We are no longer in witch hunts and bonfire times,” the bishop also said in his Facebook post. “The word of our sister Emilie gives us light, life and guidance as Laudato Si’ asks for all the people of this planet.”

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Federal appeals court largely rejects Trump’s emergency tariffs

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that most of President Donald Trump’s global tariffs are illegal, striking a massive blow to the core of his aggressive trade policy.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a 7-4 ruling, held that the law Trump invoked when he granted his most expansive tariffs does not actually grant him the power to impose those levies.

“The core Congressional power to impose taxes such as tariffs is vested exclusively in the legislative branch by the Constitution,” the court said. “Tariffs are a core Congressional power.”

The appellate court paused its ruling from taking effect until Oct. 14, in order to give the Trump administration time to ask the Supreme Court to reverse the decision.

Trump later Friday attacked the appeals court as “Highly Partisan” and asserted that the Supreme Court will rule in his favor.

“If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”

“The President’s tariffs remain in effect, and we look forward to ultimate victory on this matter,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a separate statement.

Friday’s ruling is the second straight loss for Trump in the make-or-break case, known as V.O.S. Selections v. Trump.

The case was consolidated from two separate lawsuits, one filed by a dozen states and the other by five small U.S. businesses.

It is the furthest along of more than half a dozen federal lawsuits challenging Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose sweeping tariffs.

Read the rest here.

Trump Has Dropped an ‘Atomic Bomb’ on the Department of Justice

...Donald Trump has blown through all of this. From the first days of his second term, that much was clear. He granted clemency even to the most violent rioters on Jan. 6, including people found guilty of seditious conspiracy.

At the same time, he launched a purge against dozens of prosecutors who investigated and prosecuted the Jan. 6 rioters.

The Justice Department dropped its charges against the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, because the case was getting in the way of Adams’s enforcement of Trump’s immigration priorities. The judge in the case said it “smacks of a bargain,” one so transparently in violation of Justice Department standards and practices that it prompted the resignations of multiple prosecutors.

(There have been so many scandals since the Adams incident that it feels like ancient history — as if it happened during the First Continental Congress, and not mere months ago.)

Trump’s bias has extended not just to people who’ve shown individual loyalty to Trump, but also to favored and disfavored constituencies. Earlier this summer, his Justice Department sought an astonishingly light sentence for a Louisville police officer convicted of a civil rights violation after he fired wildly into an apartment on the night Breonna Taylor was killed.

At the same time, it has relentlessly pursued migrants, deporting hundreds to a brutal El Salvadoran prison without due process. Sadly, that incident was but the tip of an iceberg of brutality aimed at people who are suspected of being illegal immigrants.

And it all keeps escalating. I have no way of knowing whether John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, is guilty of a crime, but I do know that when Kash Patel, the director of the F.B.I., tweets triumphantly amid reports of a search of Bolton’s home that “NO ONE is above the law” and when the vice president of the United States confirms that Bolton is under investigation, they are breaking through the standards designed to remind us that every American is innocent until proven guilty.

Nor do I know whether Senator Adam Schiff of California, or Attorney General Letitia James of New York, or Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, is guilty of mortgage fraud, but the public accusation — in the absence of any adjudication — is yet another grave breach of the standards that preserve the presumption of innocence.

And when the president fired Cook on the basis of an unproven allegation, he not only violated the standards that preserve our system of justice, he may have violated the law as well. The president has to show “cause” before he fires a Federal Reserve governor, and an accusation of impropriety is not the same as the legal proof of improper conduct.

The very effort to use a Trump administration official, Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to engage in targeted examinations of the financial records of prominent Democrats is yet another application of Trump’s relentless thirst for vengeance. It is certainly fine — even laudable — to police real accusations of suspected mortgage fraud. It is a gross abuse of justice to single out Democrats for special attention in this way.

On Wednesday, in fact, Trump made another reckless criminal accusation, declaring on Truth Social that George Soros and his son should be charged under “RICO,” the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO is a statute typically deployed to combat organized crime.

But this is what authoritarian regimes do. They don’t simply declare that they’re prosecuting political opponents, they go ahead and do it — through trumped-up charges or selective prosecution.

Read the rest here.

Germany is rearming, with potentially huge implications

...Across Germany, both politicians and members of the public have been going through a similar transformation. The country’s army, officially named the Bundeswehr — which translates as “federal defense” — was established by the United States during the Cold War. It was designed to support NATO rather than ever lead a conflict, for fear that a German military could be misused as it was during World War II. This supporting role suited Germany’s leaders: Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the country’s politicians carefully shaped an image of a peaceful nation that prefers influencing global politics through trade and diplomacy. After the end of the Cold War the Bundeswehr began scaling down, with military spending falling from a high of 4.9 percent of GDP in 1963 to just 1.1 percent in 2005.

But in the months following the Russian invasion, then-chancellor Olaf Scholz surprised the world by announcing a radical change in German foreign policy, including a €100 billion ($116 billion) plan to beef up its army. Then in early 2025, five days after the February election of new chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Donald Trump invited Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky into the Oval Office for a browbeating broadcast around the world that signaled his lack of interest in standing up to Russia. A shocked Merz, who had campaigned on a platform of low taxes and low spending, immediately agreed with Scholz to work together to reform the country’s strict borrowing laws — which were embedded in the constitution — and build up its defense capabilities as quickly as possible with a €1 trillion loan, which amounts to about 25 percent of the country’s GDP. According to Lorenzo Scarazzato, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), this type of defense spending was previously unheard of during peacetime. “Countries that spend this much are usually those at war, or autocratic states that don’t have democratic oversight,” he said.

The following month, Germany’s lawmakers voted to back the plan, setting the country’s military on track to be the best-funded in Europe and the fourth-biggest in the world. In Merz’s view, Europe didn’t just need to arm itself against Russian aggression, but also “achieve independence from the USA.” Later in the year, NATO members would agree to raise their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, at Trump’s behest.

Read the rest here.

This is a longish read, but very good.

White House declares $4.9B in foreign aid unilaterally canceled

President Donald Trump threw a grenade Friday into September government funding negotiations on Capitol Hill, declaring the unilateral power to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid by using a so-called pocket rescission.

Escalating the administration’s assault on Congress’ funding prerogatives, the White House budget office announced Friday morning that Trump has canceled $4.9 billion through the gambit that Congress’ top watchdog and many lawmakers argue is an illegal end-run around their “power of the purse.”

The move to unilaterally nix money previously approved by Congress raises tensions on Capitol Hill as lawmakers face an Oct. 1 deadline to avoid a government shutdown, pitting Republicans at the White House against GOP lawmakers and increasing pressure on Democrats to force a funding lapse unless Trump stands down.

Democrats and Republicans alike have warned that a pocket rescissions request would hamper cross-party talks to avert a shutdown at the end of September, while fulfilling White House budget director Russ Vought’s wish that the process of funding the government be “less bipartisan” to accommodate a raft of conservative priorities.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hinted Friday that Democrats could refuse to offer the votes to get a government funding bill through the chamber before funding lapses late next month if congressional Republicans don’t push back against Trump’s latest funding move.

“Republicans don’t have to be a rubber stamp for this carnage,” Schumer said, adding that “if Republicans are insistent on going it alone, Democrats won’t be party to their destruction.”

Yet three congressional Republicans, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they expect Vought to send additional requests to revoke funding between now and the end of the current fiscal year, which would only inflame tensions.

“Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,” the Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, said in a quick and clear rebuke of the Trump administration’s gambit.

But the Trump administration is embracing the strategy boldly and without apology, while also signaling it intends to stare down any legal challenges that may come its way as a result: “Congress can choose to vote to rescind or continue the funds — it doesn’t matter,” an official from the White House budget office said in a statement. “This approach is rare but not unprecedented.”

Read the rest here.

Trump revokes Secret Service protection for Kamala Harris

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has revoked U.S. Secret Service protection for former Vice President Kamala Harris, a senior adviser to Harris told NBC News on Friday.

“The Vice President is grateful to the United States Secret Service for their professionalism, dedication, and unwavering commitment to safety," the adviser said.

A senior White House official confirmed Friday that Trump had revoked Harris’ Secret Service detail, adding that vice presidents typically only get six months of protection when they leave office.

Congress passed legislation in 2008 that authorized the Secret Service to protect former vice presidents, their spouses and their children under 16 years old for up to six months after the end of a vice president’s term.

A Secret Service official told NBC that while that's true, then-President Joe Biden signed an executive memorandum in January extending Harris’ protection to 18 months.

Aides to the former president didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the rest here.

Want to work for National Weather Service? Be ready to explain how you agree with Trump

As the National Weather Service scrambles to hire up to 450 people to restore deep cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency, potential applicants are being asked to explain how they would advance President Donald Trump’s agenda if hired.

A posting from the weather service’s parent agency seeking meteorologists asks applicants to identify one or two of Trump’s executive orders “that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired.”

It’s among screening questions added to government job applications as part of a “ merit hiring plan” that Trump announced at the outset of his second term, and it’s not unique to the weather service positions. But some experts said they are alarmed at the prospect that a candidate’s ideology could matter for jobs in science.

Read the rest here.

With the rich ALREADY fleeing New York, who’d be left for Zohran Mamdani to tax?

Anyone who thinks Zohran Mamdani’s plans to tax the rich are remotely workable, beware: The city’s share of “the rich” is already shrinking.

So if Mamdani gets his way, there soon might be no one at all left to squeeze.

From 2010 to 2022, the Citizens Budget Committee reports, New York state’s share of taxpayers with more than $1 million in federal adjusted gross income shrunk by almost a third — from 12.7% to 8.7%.

The city’s share also fell, from 6.5% to 4.2%.

New York’s loss was other states’ gain, particularly Florida, Texas and even California.

Thanks to inflation, the gross number of million-plus earners in New York grew, but it less than doubled; it tripled in California and Texas and quadrupled in Florida.

New York’s losses come with a steep cost, the CBC warns: “Had New York State and City had the same share of millionaires in 2022 as they did in 2010, the State would have received $10.7 billion more” in personal-income-tax revenue, and “the City $2.5 billion more. More millionaires mean more PIT revenue.”

Read the rest here.

DOJ drops charges against another client of AG Pam Bondi's brother Brad

For the second time in less than a month, the Justice Department on Wednesday abruptly dropped charges against a client represented by Brad Bondi, the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Federal prosecutors in Missouri this week agreed to voluntarily dismiss an indictment against Sid Chakraverty, a property developer who faced felony wire fraud charges. Prosecutors under the Biden administration accused Chakraverty in 2024 of lying about hiring women- and minority-owned subcontractors on a housing development in order to allegedly secure favorable tax incentives.

As recently as three weeks ago, career prosecutors held that Chakraverty should face criminal penalties for his alleged scheme.

But on Wednesday, the newly installed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Albus, a Trump appointee, filed court papers informing the judge overseeing the case that the "defendants have agreed to make restitution of the taxes" and that it is therefore "prudent for the government to end this criminal prosecution."

Read the rest here.

Ashli Babbitt, Jan. 6 rioter killed in Capitol, offered military funeral honors

Pardon me while I throw up.

Pope Francis blessed King and Queen’s anniversary despite their divorces

Pope Francis gave the King and Queen a blessing for their 20th wedding anniversary, it has emerged.

The King and Queen, who had a private audience with the late pontiff in April, were offered his blessing behind closed doors.

Their marriage would not be recognised in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Both have been divorced, with Andrew Parker Bowles, the Queen’s ex-husband, still living.

But Pope Francis gave a blessing during a 20-minute meeting during their state visit to Rome, it has been claimed.

The late Pope and the King are also said to have prayed together, thought to be the first time the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Bishop of Rome have done so.

Read the rest here.

Medical Quackery and RFK's Purge at the CDC

An escalating conflict over an influential vaccine committee was one of the final straws that led to the firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez and the exodus of other highly regarded top officials.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had repeatedly undermined the agency’s independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, firing the committee’s members and appointing new members, including vaccine skeptics.

Early Wednesday, Monarez suggested to Dr. Richard Besser that she was going to be forced to sign off on new vaccine recommendations.

“She said there were two things she would never do in the job,” said Besser, a former acting CDC director and the CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “One, in terms of firing her leadership who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber-stamp ACIP recommendations that flew in the face of science.”

Hours later, Monarez was out, according to a Health and Human Services post on X. Almost immediately, several top officials resigned in protest.

One of those officials, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who directed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases — which oversees vaccines — wrote in his resignation letter that a particular document related to the vaccine committee “ignored all feedback from career staff at CDC.”

The document was guidance for a newly formed work group that will present Covid vaccine data and research at the upcoming ACIP meeting — scheduled for September 18 — and contained anti-vaccine talking points. The work group will be led by newly appointed ACIP member Retsef Levi, an MIT professor who has been vocally against the mRNA Covid vaccines.

Read the rest here.

Europe must assert hard power or become a ‘hunted animal,’ France’s top general warns

PARIS — Europe's disunited governments are in denial about the extent to which violence is shaping global politics and must step up to assert their combined force as a hard power, the chief of defense staff of the French military has warned in a sweeping interview.

"A weakened Europe may find itself tomorrow as a hunted animal, after two centuries of the West setting the tone,” General Thierry Burkhard said in unusually outspoken remarks to POLITICO and French newspaper Libération.  "It's not only about armed forces, but about the fact that hard power dynamics now prevail."

Burkhard warned that Europe's fragmented countries would have to bind together more tightly as a strategic force to counteract the "spheres of influence" being built by China, Russia and the U.S.

"On the one hand, European countries have never been so strong. On the other, there is a form of denial from governments and populations in the face of the level of violence in the world today," he added.

The French general's reality check echoes a growing number of warnings about Europe's weakness.

Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi also stressed last week the EU had to stop pretending it could exercise global influence just as an economic force and consumer market. He insisted the bloc had received a "very brutal wake-up call" from Donald Trump that it needed to think in far more strategic terms about security and defense spending.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday accused the European Union of sliding into irrelevance on the world stage. "We must be willing to pay the price of our freedom and our independence,” she said.

Read the rest here.

France may be heading into a full blown political crisis

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s allies don’t seem to have any good answers as to what happens after the almost certain fall of the government of Prime Minister François Bayrou in the Sept. 8 parliamentary vote of confidence.

The names of Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin are emerging in the chatter as potential successors to the poisoned chalice of the premiership, but what would a new recruit really solve? A new PM will be ensnared in exactly the same quagmire.

French politics will still be too internally riven to pass vital deficit-slashing reforms, despite Bayrou’s Cassandra-like warnings that France could be headed toward a Greek-style debt crisis if it sits on its hands and doesn’t implement an unpopular €43.8 billion budget squeeze.

So how about another snap election? If Macron calls one, the political landscape could still be mired in exactly the same impasse — but the blame after a vote would more obviously fall on him rather than on his prime minister. And all that time, the financial markets will be running out of patience regarding France’s ability to put its books in order.

All in all, a state of shock grips elected officials, aides and advisers from the various parties that support France’s minority government.

Read the rest here.

Terrorist Attack on Minneapolis Catholic Church/School

There has been a planned attack on a Catholic Church in Minnesota, almost certainly motivated by anti-Catholic hatred. At least seventeen people, mostly children, were shot and wounded. Two children were killed. While these holy martyrs are in no need of our prayers, their devastated families and the wounded are. 

Kyrie Eleison.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Trump is playing with fire in his attacks on the Federal Reserve

The US Federal Reserve must henceforth be considered the personal political agency of Donald Trump. America’s monetary credibility has been utterly trashed.

The world’s superpower central bank will set interest rates at his whim, much like the Turkish central bank under the Erdogan regime.

Markets must now assume that Trump will compel the Fed to soak up America’s exorbitant debt issuance and hold down long-term interests by a form of de facto yield curve control.

They must also assume that Trump will force the Fed to press the pedal to the floor and slash interest rates far below the natural Wicksellian rate until the midterm elections are safely out of the way next year.

Trump has crossed the Rubicon by purging an independent member of the seven-strong Fed board, each appointed for 14 years with Senate confirmation and protected tenure to shield them from pressure.

He has already sacked the protected head of the Federal Trade Commission and got away with it, so the latest abuse should hardly come as a surprise.

If there were any authenticity to the sacking of Lisa Cook, one of the federal governors, under the legal category “for cause” it would have entailed a genuine probe under due process.

Trump’s obvious purpose is to bring the Fed under his full control immediately and, above all, to issue an implicit warning to any member of the Federal Open Market Committee who refuses to toe the line that they too will be disposed of if anything can be found against them – and something can always be found.

“It’s an authoritarian power grab that blatantly violates the Federal Reserve Act, and any court that follows the law will overturn it,” said Elizabeth Warren, the veteran Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.

Her caveat is noted. It takes some courage for intimidated judges to “follow the law” in Donald Trump’s America.

The dollar was already on borrowed time as the world’s hegemonic reserve currency before the death of the Fed. The process will now accelerate, with potent implications for the dollarised system of global finance.

The Bank for International Settlements estimates that $13tn (£9.6tn) of offshore global debt is denominated in US dollars, or $35tn if you include embedded liabilities in swaps and other derivatives.

Trump can bulldoze his way through resistance within the US – and he can strong-arm foreign allies into concessions, until they cease to be allies – but there is one great immovable power that is beyond his reach.

He cannot force the global bond market to buy US treasuries and fund his debt.

The Achilles’ heel of Trumpism is that the US has a net international investment position of minus $24.6 trillion, or 82pc of GDP. It has a personal savings rate of 4.7pc, a fraction of US post-war levels or of global levels, and is living off a constant supply of foreign credit to cover day to day spending.

Read the rest here.

One additional factor not getting a lot of attention in all of this is that Trump has been investing hundreds of millions of his own money in US bonds since he won re-election. If he can force down interest rates, he stands to make a killing.

The gerrymandering wars is a flashing warning light for US democracy

After the extraordinary scene of Texas Democrats fleeing their state to forestall a rare mid-decade gerrymander, Texas Republicans nevertheless moved this week to approve a new congressional map. It is designed to give their party five additional seats in Congress in next year’s midterm elections, as requested by President Trump. 

California Democrats responded this week by rushing to advance their own plan to draw a new congressional map to counter Texas Republicans. Red and Blue states across the country are now predictably threatening to join this bare-knuckle political brawl. 

Although partisan gerrymandering has sadly become a routine practice pushing us further into tribalism and dysfunction, the current crisis should be seen for what it is: a flashing red warning light for our democracy. 

Indeed, if this race to the bottom continues, every aspect of our democratic system of governance could be captured by extreme partisanship, and every last vestige of trust necessary for that system to work could soon be lost. At that point, it may well be too late to change course. 

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) has proposed the best way out of the current standoff: a federal bipartisan embrace of independent commissions to draw electoral maps so that voters can choose their politicians rather than self-interested politicians cynically rigging the system to their partisan advantage.

That would solve the immediate crisis, but we must also confront the larger issue of extremism dominating our politics.

The truth is our democratic system has been completely hijacked to yield outsized power to the partisan fringes. These voters on the far left and right of the political mainstream view politics as an existential tribal struggle that must be won at all costs, and they thus demand that their elected officials engage in tribal warfare and scorched-earth politics. 

Read the rest here.

The Threat to Madisonian Democracy

...In an astounding 80 percent of our states, a single party already controls the House, Senate and governor’s office — a so-called trifecta — or has enough power to block gubernatorial vetoes from the other party. With further redistricting, this figure could hit 90 percent before the end of Trump’s term.  

The upshot is that Americans are increasingly living in airtight partisan state and local political bubbles, while being governed nationally by a single individual openly hostile to the interests of half the population.

From a Madisonian perspective, American democracy is at present spiraling headlong in the wrong direction. In the words of famed Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, Trump has established and demonstrated his position as “sovereign” by repeatedly “deciding” unilaterally on “exceptions” to the constitutional order, then designating for punishment political “enemies” he sees as obstacles to the exercise of his sovereign will. 

He has singled out former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James for legal retribution — even declaring some of them guilty of “treason.” He has shaken down law firms and universities and even refuses to rule out pursuing a constitutionally prohibited third term. 

Abroad, he has declared outlandishly bogus “emergencies” under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to threaten or impose massive import tariffs — tariffs such as those targeted at Brazil for its judicial prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro. He has even threatened to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. 

Read the rest here.

Archbishop Alexei of Alaska (OCA) Meets Putin; Sparking Criticism

See here, and here. Unless you are calling the man to repentance, I fail to see any justification for a prominent hierarch to meet with an indicted war criminal and almost certainly a murderer many times over. It reminds me of the old days when prominent Catholic clergy were openly cozy with Mafia bosses. To say that this was ill advised would be a gross understatement. 

HT: Deacon Nicholas

In the news

Politics may have spurred August purge of 5 veteran FBI agents

Trump bought more than $100 million in bonds since January even as he demands rate cuts that would greatly increase their value.

Bolivia set to end decades of leftist rule

Israel approves settlement plan to 'erase' idea of Palestinian state

Trump administration revokes security clearances of 37 current and former government officials

Florida is now the 2nd most financially distressed state in the US — topped only by Texas

Trump suggests he's a "war hero"

Laura Loomer flexes influence, racks up wins with Trump

See also this.

RIP Pretty Girl

How I wish I could complain one more time about tripping over your toys or your habit of sprawling on top of the AC vent on hot days. To have you sit down next to me and poke me with your nose at the dinner table, begging for a bite of my supper. In all our years together, today was the first time you hurt me.

Why Democrats are in trouble, and what I think they should do if they want to start winning again

Five years ago, Raymond Teachey voted, as usual, for the Democratic presidential nominee.

But by last fall, Mr. Teachey, an aircraft mechanic from Bucks County, Pa., was rethinking his political allegiances. To him, the Democratic Party seemed increasingly focused on issues of identity at the expense of more tangible day-to-day concerns, such as public safety or the economy.

“Some of them turned their back on their base,” Mr. Teachey, 54, said.

Working-class voters like Mr. Teachey, who supported Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2020 but either backed President Trump last year or, as Mr. Teachey did, skipped the 2024 presidential election, help explain why Democrats lost pivotal swing counties like Bucks, and vividly illustrate how the traditional Democratic coalition has eroded in the Trump era.

Read the rest here.

I am not and have never been a fan of the political left. That said, and writing as a deeply disaffected former Republican, here is my unsolicited advice if Democrats want to start winning elections again.

* Ditch the identitarian politics and move to the center on the culture war issues. It may play well on the left coast and in New York, but in most of the rest of the country it is driving voters away. I realize that some groups need to be reassured now and then that you still have their backs and you can't afford to lose all of their votes. But that should not be the face of the Democratic Party. There is a reason why Bernie Sanders is drawing stunning crowds in deep red states. Bernie is about class and income inequality. Stop focusing on pronouns and start focusing on paychecks. 

* Stop treating people with traditional moral and religious beliefs as kooks, or worse. It's not divisive. It's offensive.

* Stop treating crime as a subject for a sociology lecture in college. Tell people that criminals need to be locked up, and then do it. And tell the "Defund the police" crowd to shut up. You can't treat every fringe opinion as acceptable if you want to win an election. These clowns are costing you more votes than they are delivering. And they are wrong.

* Get serious about the border. You don't have to be xenophobes where the only legal immigrants being welcomed are White South Africans. But illegal immigration was out of control. Trump wasn't wrong about that and Democrats were. 

* Become what Republicans used to be... i.e. fiscal conservatives. Americans are getting seriously frightened by the national debt. And they should be. 

* Become what Republicans used to be... i.e. champions of free trade. Tariffs are a sales tax aimed squarely at the working class and poor. They are also highly inflationary. Billionaires will still be able to afford their yachts. But Walmart shoppers are going to get hurt bad.

* Become what Republicans used to be... i.e. defenders of freedom globally. Isolationism, whether political or economic, is dangerous. Despotism is a form of political cancer. If it's not checked, it inevitably spreads. Ronald Reagan called Soviet Russia "the evil empire" and won the cold war. Can anyone see Trump telling Putin to "tear down that wall?" Start channeling Kennedy and Truman. 

* Move to the center on abortion. Stop endorsing abortion on demand with no questions asked and no time limit. Unfortunately, Democrats aren't, and never will be a pro-life party. But you don't need to be the party of Kermit Gosenll. 

* Stop talking about guns. It's a losing issue outside of the most left wing parts of the country.

* Return to traditional Democratic values. Between 1932-1968 the Democrats largely owned Washington. Eisenhower was the only Republican president elected in that 36 year period, and he was not exactly MAGA. How did Democrats do it? By concentrating on core bread and butter issues. A fair shake for the working man. Good schools for their kids with the real hope that they would have a shot at a better life than their parents. And a fair tax system where the wealthy paid their share. I would wager every dime I own that Elon Musk and Donald Trump pay a lower effective tax rate than the guy who changes the oil in your car. If Americans ever came to realize how completely rigged the tax code is for the benefit of Wall Street and the ultra-wealthy, the public outrage would be felt even in Texas. 

How the War Ended from Japan's Perspective

The Emperor in August 

Something appropriate for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Vigil for the Feast of the Dormition

Trump is lobbying for a Nobel

Well this explains his degrading decision to meet with Vladimir Putin, on American soil of all places. Somebody needs to remind him that, as pointed out by unreconstructed rebel in an earlier post; Neville Chamberlain never got the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump asked Norwegian minister about Nobel Prize

Reflections on the Decline of Civil Discourse

In the Ruins of Public Reason, Part I: The Problem of Dialogical Illiberalism

In the Ruins of Public Reason, Part II: The Barbarians at the Gates

In the Ruins of Public Reason, Part III: When the Barbarians Are at the Gates; Fascism, Bullshit, and the Paradox of Tolerance

I found much of the above to be pretty insightful, and at times, a bit uncomfortable reading.

A Photographic Tour of 19th Century Colonial Hong Kong

Peace for our time

So; Donald Trump has invited a brutal dictator and indicted war criminal to the United States in order to negotiate the surrender of another country's territory to Russia. What could possibly go wrong?