Call the Veep, Agent Mulder!

Somewhere around the two-hour mark in JD Vance’s nearly three-hour podcast interview last week with Joe Rogan, the pair got into a serious conversation about supernatural and extraterrestrial phenomena. By serious, I mean it in the sense that Rogan seemed to take the subject seriously while Vance cynically, or cretinously, or cravenly, or credulously or conspiratorially — or perhaps it’s all of the above — played along with him.

It contained the following insights from the vice president of the United States:

“If we’re talking about an extraterrestrial being that is humanlike, but not human, that contains effectively infinite powers and is torturing human beings, you can call it an alien if you want, but I think there’s a lot of historical precedent to call that a demon.”

And:

“If you’re looking for me to concede the point that there is something different or could be something different between an angel, a demon, a space alien, a supernatural but non-any-of-those-other-things beings, yes, I concede that.”

And:

“I got two-and-a-half more years as V.P., and I swear to you, if there are little green men, like body remains, I’m not going to text you. I’m going to try to smuggle a camera in and get a photo of these things.”

Call the veep, Agent Mulder!

By this point, the two men had already propounded one conspiracy theory — that the Los Angeles mayoral election had been rigged (a claim previously debunked by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor); followed by Vance’s accusation that Joe Biden’s staff got him to eat ice cream “in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable” (a remarkable way of turning naked mendacity into adolescent prurience into another conspiracy theory); followed by an exchange about eating corn dogs in public (because, you know); followed by an argument about whether the Ten Commandments should be mandated in Texas public schools, in which neither man appeared to be aware that the commandments are not originally Christian.

Read the rest here.

Russia Halts Bond Auctions

Russia's Finance Ministry has suspended federal government bond auctions indefinitely as borrowing costs climb and investor demand weakens, complicating efforts to finance a widening wartime budget deficit.

The ministry said on Monday it was halting its regular weekly auctions of government bonds, known as OFZs, "to facilitate the stabilization of market conditions." It did not say when sales would resume, saying only that it would announce their restart at a later date.

OFZs are ruble-denominated government bonds that underpin Russia's financial system. They are the government's primary source of domestic borrowing to cover budget deficits, while banks hold them to manage daily cash needs and foreign investors buy them for returns.

The Finance Ministry has relied heavily on domestic borrowing to help finance a budget deficit that reached 5.7 trillion rubles ($72.39 billion) at the end of June, while military spending continues to outpace initial government plans.

Prices of OFZs have fallen sharply since mid-June. The RGBI government bond index has dropped from around 119 points to about 110, its lowest level this year, while yields on bonds with maturities longer than 10 years have climbed above 16.5%.

Read the rest here.

See also... Could Russia's Wartime Debt Boom Trigger a Banking Crisis?

Nuns Challenge NY Assisted Suicide Counseling Mandate

Last week, four Orders of Catholic Sisters along with the Catholic Diocese and Bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, filed suit in a New York federal district court challenging, at least as applied to them, the constitutionality of New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act as it interacts with the state's Palliative Care Information Act. Labelling these a "Suicide Counseling Mandate", the 102-page complaint (full text) in Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, Inc. v. James, (ND NY, filed 7/17/2026) alleges in part:

Read the rest here.

Nicaragua's Dictator Danial Ortega: “There won’t be anymore elections..."

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega said his country won’t be holding elections anytime soon, a statement underscoring the strongman’s efforts to extend his nearly 20-year rule and dashing hopes by the opposition that he might heed their demands for a democratic vote.

The announcement effectively canceled Nicaragua’s next elections, originally scheduled for November 2027 after the government-controlled Congress voted in January 2025 to extend the five-year presidential term by one year.

Ortega spoke on Sunday at the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution that toppled the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and first brought him to power. He returned to the presidency in 2007 and has since rewritten the constitution, crushed political opposition and solidified his control over virtually all branches of the Nicaraguan government.

Since mass protests in 2018, which led to a bloody government crackdown that killed hundreds, Ortega and his wife and co-President Rosario Murillo have been holding on to power.

Ortega declared himself the winner of the 2021 election — a vote widely viewed as illegitimate by the international community — after jailing all the candidates who could have possibly beaten him. The U.S. does not recognize Ortega’s presidency.

“There won’t be anymore elections,” Ortega said in a speech railing on his longtime adversary, the United States. “Parties put in place by the Yankees, put in place by the Somoza regime, coming back to power — that story is over.”

Read the rest here

The Most Corrupt Presidency in American History, by the Numbers

Ask historians or laymen to name the most blatantly corrupt pardon over the first 230 years or so of American presidenting, and most will likely arrive at the same answer: Marc Rich.

Rich, a multiple-passport-holding, proudly amoral oil trader who specialized in sanctions-circumventing commerce with the likes of Nicolae Ceaușescu and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, fled to Switzerland in 1983 rather than face a potential life sentence and $1.6 million in fines on 65 counts of wire fraud, trading with the enemy, and tax evasion. (It was the biggest tax evasion case to date in U.S. history, at $48 million—around $150 million today.) Yet Bill Clinton, in the final minutes of his presidency, gifted Rich a midnight pardon.

All normal pardon protocols had been circumvented. The Justice Department was blindsided, and the longtime fugitive—a veteran of the FBI's Most Wanted List—had never expressed the customary remorse. Reporting soon revealed that Rich's ex-wife, the songwriter Denise Rich, had donated $1.1 million (roughly $2.3 million in 2026 dollars) to Democratic causes during the Clinton presidency, including (in nominal dollars) $450,000 to the Clinton Library, $120,000 for Hillary Clinton's Senate race, and $25,000 to Al Gore's Florida recount effort. "Not just a large donor," Sen. Russell Feingold (D–Wisc.) noted at the time, but "a huge donor."

Rich's last-ditch clemency drew widespread bipartisan condemnation. "Disgraceful," judged former President Jimmy Carter. Added New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: "The fact that Bill Clinton and Eric Holder engineered a pardon for him—without input from me, as the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted him, or Janet Reno, as Attorney General, will forever be a blemish on our justice system."

You have likely never heard the name Trevor Milton, yet in a couple of key respects his 2025 pardon by President Donald Trump was worse. The founding CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer Nikola Corporation, Milton in 2022 was convicted on three counts of investor fraud that could have brought him four years in prison and a staggering $676 million worth of mandated restitution to shareholders. Among his more notorious stunts was a 2018 promotional video of a supposedly functional prototype Nikola truck that was not in fact operational but had instead been rolled down a desert hill. Milton, represented in court by the brother of then–Attorney General Pam Bondi, was still awaiting final sentencing when he got the call from Trump announcing an unconditional pardon, no restitution (or remorse) required. When asked about the clemency, the president said: "They say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president….He supported Trump. He liked Trump." Milton and his wife, The Wall Street Journal reported, had donated "at least $3.2 million to Trump's 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump's orbit." The couple had not previously demonstrated a financial interest in politics.

Milton's family paid more in political donations than Rich's. He had exponentially more in fines and restitutions taken off the table, and he has spent his post-clemency life not in humiliated exile but in lavish Washington excess, hobnobbing with the president and Cabinet members at investment conferences and black-tie events to gin up interest in his latest schemes. Such is the rule, not the exception: When it comes to plausibly pay-for-play pardons, Trump in his second term makes Bill Clinton and every other president look like pikers.

Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive who'd pled guilty to spending his employees' federal tax withholdings on such baubles as a $2 million yacht, was in May 2025 on the verge of commencing an 18-month sentence and paying $4.4 million in fines when Trump issued his get-out-of-jail-free card. On his pardon application, Walczak made the explicit pitch that his mother, Elizabeth Fago, had raised millions of dollars for Trump and the GOP in 2024 campaigns, and additionally assisted the president by publicizing embarrassing revelations from the diary of President Joe Biden's daughter Ashley. Less than three weeks before the pardon, Fago accepted an invitation to attend a million-dollar-per-head fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, crowned by a one-on-one with the president.

Trump's second-term pardons and sentence commutations have wiped away more than $2 billion in fines and restitutions. The Wall Street Journal reported in December 2025 that the president's forgiveness spree "has spawned a pardon-shopping industry where lobbyists say their going rate is $1 million." The Atlantic in June 2026 set the updated price at $2 million. Whereas Bill Clinton conceded within 15 months that the Marc Rich clemency had been a mistake (even while hotly denying that political donations had anything to do with it; he claims to have been persuaded by testimony from high-profile Israelis such as Ehud Barak), the always-unapologetic Trump barely feigns interest in the process, even while his family and Cabinet members forge business deals with the ex-cons and their companies.

Queried by 60 Minutes in October 2025 as to why he had just pardoned Changpeng Zhao—the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who had already served four months in prison and had his company pay $4.3 billion for money laundering—Trump said: "I have no idea who he is." The president might have asked his son Don Jr., who had recently introduced his dad to Zhao's pardon lobbyist and in the preceding months had contracted Binance to exclusively host and build the blockchain technology for the Trump family crypto trading platform World Liberty Financial. (That company's stablecoin, USD1, was used in May 2025 as the currency for a $2 billion investment into Binance by the United Arab Emirates company MGX, a transaction that, according to The Wall Street Journal, "rocketed USD1 up the rankings of largest stablecoins," thereby "pushing its market capitalization up from $127 million to over $2.1 billion.") When asked about the controversial clemency, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a one-size-fits-all denial: "Neither the president nor his family have ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest."

Read the rest here.

See also...

Trump’s 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' Marks a Pattern of Trying To Profit From the Presidency

Trump calls for revocation of ABC, NBC licenses over speech snub

President Donald Trump said TV networks that did not feature live coverage of his primetime address on election security should have their broadcast licenses revoked.

CNN, ABC and NBC opted against live coverage of the speech in which Trump claimed China illegally accessed millions of voter files as part of a broader effort to manipulate U.S. elections in 2018 and 2020.

Other outlets, including CBS, MS NOW and Fox News, chose to broadcast the speech at least in part. NBC and ABC aired Trump’s remarks on their streaming channels.

Trump called out NBC and ABC during his remarks, accusing the networks of covering up what he labeled election fraud.

“In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about,” he said. “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”

TV networks are not required to air presidential remarks in primetime. Past presidents have traditionally reserved such major addresses for national crises or critical moments. Outlets have traditionally provided live coverage, but there have been exceptions.

Multiple networks declined in 2022 to broadcast President Joe Biden’s address on threats to democracy. ABC, CBS and NBC did not air President Barack Obama’s 2014 primetime speech on immigration.

Read the rest here.

Prince of Lichtenstein Will Veto Bill Legalizing Abortion

 (ZENIT News / Guadalajara, Mexico, 07.09.2026).- In a Europe where monarchies generally retain a strictly ceremonial role, the small Principality of Liechtenstein serves as an exception. Its Prince Regent and heir, Alois of Liechtenstein, recently announced that he will veto the proposed abortion law reform if it successfully clears the parliamentary process. 

This move reignites a debate the country experienced fifteen years ago. The proposed initiative seeks to introduce a law allowing abortion within a specific timeframe, specifically, during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. Currently, Liechtenstein’s legislation permits exceptions only when there is a serious threat to the pregnant woman’s life or health, or when the pregnancy is the result of a sexual crime. In an interview with the newspaper Liechtensteiner Vaterland, Prince Alois, a practicing Catholic, recently announced that he would not sanction the proposed reform. «The protection of unborn life represents a fundamental social and ethical value,» he stated, adding that the proposal did not sufficiently guarantee «the fundamental legal interest of protecting life.» 

This is not the first time the heir to the throne has intervened so directly in this debate. In 2011, a similar initiative proposed legalizing abortion during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy and included provisions for cases involving severe fetal disabilities. Even before the public vote took place, Prince Alois announced that he would exercise his right of veto if the reform were to pass. Ultimately, this proved unnecessary. In the referendum held in September of that year, 52.3% of voters rejected the proposal; consequently, the Prince did not have to resort to one of the prerogatives that distinguish the Liechtenstein monarchy from other European Royal Houses.Liechtenstein’s Constitution grants significant powers to the country’s Monarch, following a 2003 referendum initiated by Prince Alois’s father, Prince Hans-Adam II. These powers include the authority to veto laws passed by Parliament, dismiss the elected government, and appoint judges; consequently, although it is a constitutional monarchy in practice, it is often described as a unique absolute monarchy within Europe. This power is held by Prince Alois, who has served as Regent since 2004.

Read the rest here.

Todd Blanche Defends Trump's Blatantly Corrupt IRS 'Settlement'

"I'm his lawyer," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, describing his relationship with President Donald Trump. Blanche quickly corrected himself: "Was his lawyer," he clarified. But the slip went to the heart of the main question that senators should be asking as they decide whether to confirm Blanche's nomination as attorney general: Would he use that position to pursue justice or to advance Trump's personal interests?

Probably the latter, judging from Blanche's central role in Trump's brazenly corrupt "settlement agreement" with the IRS, which a federal judge this week condemned as the "improper" product of blatant self-dealing. That cozy arrangement, which was predicated on a lawsuit that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said was phony from the beginning, delivered huge favors to Trump, his family, and his followers at taxpayers' expense.

One of those favors was a $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund," which was designed to reward the president's allies and supporters by compensating them for their alleged persecution by the Biden administration. Blanche approved that scheme and repeatedly defended it. But it provoked an intense bipartisan backlash that persuaded him to ditch the plan two weeks after announcing it.

Read the rest here.

Nearly Half of House Democrats Vote to End Aid to Israel

Nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel Wednesday, underscoring a seismic shift in political support for the longtime U.S. ally.

The amendment to a State Department spending bill would have eliminated $3.3 billion in funding, and thanks to strong Republican support for the Jewish state, it failed 314-104. But the vote served as a moment of reckoning for House Democrats who have had to confront years of voter outrage about Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza.

Read the rest here.

Is Russia Actually Losing?

Quote of the day...

In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era.--We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them--they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How then shall we perform it?--At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide...

Read the rest here.

-Abraham Lincoln

The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions:

Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois

January 27, 1838

CATO: A Familiar Pattern: White House Self-Dealing in US Trade & Investment Policy

President Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure landed last week showing more than $2 billion in income, roughly triple 2024’s figure. Cryptocurrency alone accounted for $1.4 billion, most from meme-coin royalties and token sales tied to the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial. Read against the deals cataloged below, the filing paints a sordid picture of self-dealing within the upper echelons of the White House—or at the very least, the appearance of such.

Read the rest here.

ISW: Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 7, 2026

Ukraine’s intermediate-range strike campaign against a multitude of diverse targets, including Russian air defenses, petroleum product transport, other logistics, and electrical substations, is collapsing logistics in occupied Crimea. Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) Commander Major Robert “Magyar” Brovdi reported on July 7 that Ukrainian forces struck eight Russian shadow fleet tankers, including the Venera-3, Sanar-1, Sanar-17, Klimena, Teti, Alexei Savrasov, Ivan Cheremisinov, and Penelopa tankers; one dry cargo ship; and one ferry in the Sea of Azov transporting gasoline to occupied Crimea on the night of July 6 to 7.[1] Brovdi implied that the strikes against the shadow fleet vessels will inhibit Russian efforts to transport gasoline to occupied Crimea, and a local Crimea-based Telegram also reported that the tankers were ferrying gasoline to Crimea.[2] NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) data shows two heat anomalies in the Sea of Azov north of the Kerch Strait on July 7.[3] Brovdi reported on July 7 that Ukrainian forces also struck 44 electrical facilities in occupied Crimea and occupied southern Ukraine between July 1 and 7.[4] Adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Serhii Sternenko, reported on July 7 that there are fires near the Saky 110 kV and Zakhidno-Krymska 330 kV substations, near the Saky railway station, and near a known S-400 air defense system position in occupied Crimea.[5] The Ukrainian General Staff reported on July 7 that Ukrainian forces also struck two railway bridges near occupied Rozdolne (either 110 or 214 kilometers from the frontline) and Ichki (roughly 257 kilometers from the frontline) that Russian forces used for logistics.[6]

Ukrainian Presidential Office in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea provided a summary on July 6 of Ukrainian strikes against occupied Crimea in June 2026, including on over 15 Russian air defense systems and radar stations; oil terminals in occupied Feodosia; oil tanks at the Kamysh-Burun Combined Heating and Power Plan in occupied Kerch; substations and the Tavriisk Thermal Power Plant in occupied Sevastopol; the Hlibiv underground gas storage facility in occupied Tarkhankhut; the Simferopol gas distribution station; transport and bridge infrastructure, particularly along the A-291 Kerch – Simferopol – Sevastopol – Tavrida and M-14 Rostov-Crimea highways; the Crimean Titan plant in occupied Armyansk; and Russian naval targets.[7] Advisor to the Crimean occupation head Oleg Kryuchkov stated on July 7 that Ukrainian strikes caused power outages in 18 raions in northern, central, western, and eastern occupied Crimea.[8] Kherson Oblast occupation head Vladimir Saldo stated on July 6 that the entirety of occupied Kherson Oblast is suffering from partial or complete power outages and declared a state of emergency on July 7.[9] Zaporizhia Oblast occupation head Yevgeny Balitsky similarly stated on July 6 that Ukrainian strikes caused some power outages in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast.[10] Crimea-based Russian telecommunications operators introduced emergency roaming in occupied Crimea as of July 7 so subscribers can connect to other operators’ networks in the event of a complete power outage.[11] Ukrainian forces have been recently intensifying their intermediate-range strike campaign against energy infrastructure, Russian military assets, and logistics in and to occupied Crimea in recent weeks, causing Russian officials to suspend railway service and limit road traffic. These strikes are degrading Russia’s air defense umbrella, impeding its ability to defend against strikes that are increasingly interdicting logistics, depriving Russia of the ability to transport fuel to occupied Crimea, exacerbating fuel shortages, and making it difficult to live and operate in the peninsula.[12]

Read the rest here.

Liturgy for the Feast of St. John of San Francisco

Happy 4th of July

The SSPX: When negotiations are one sided

Rorate Caeli has an excellent post on this history of the dialogue and relationship between Rome and the Society of St. Pius X. It closely aligns with my own view and I strongly recommend it. See also my own post a couple spots down on the blog. Obviously I am not Catholic and so have no dog in this fight. But it would seem to me that if Rome is serious about desiring some sort of reproachment with Orthodoxy, they could start by backing off the alarming claim that the pope has the authority to unilaterally suppress the 1500 year old liturgical patrimony of the Christian West. If such power is claimed over the Latin Rite, why would this super bishop with claimed universal jurisdiction not be able to do the same thing to the liturgical rites of the Christian East? To say that said claim would be a show stopper for any kind of serious dialogue aimed at restoration of communion should be so obvious as not to require further explanation. 

Bloodier than Stalingrad: Number of casualties in Russo-Ukrainian war reaches 2 million

Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now cost the country some 450,000 lives, according to a new study that estimates the war’s total casualty numbers to have surpassed 2 million.

The research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates Russia has suffered 1.4 million casualties, including killed, wounded and missing soldiers – a stunning number that amounts to roughly 1% of the country’s population.

The losses are not spread evenly across Russia, with poorer areas and ethnic minorities suffering significantly higher casualty rates. Stories of male populations of small remote villages being virtually wiped out are becoming more common in Russian opposition media. And according to the study, Russia is currently unable to recruit new troops at the same rate as it is losing them.

“These rates are astounding,” Seth G. Jones and Riley McCabe, the authors of the study, said. “Russian fatalities in Ukraine are more than four times greater than all US fatalities in all wars combined since World War II, and more than nine times greater than all Soviet and Russian fatalities in all wars combined since World War II.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine is estimated to have endured between 525,000 and 625,000 casualties, including 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine release official casualty data, but the latest CSIS figures are broadly in line with western estimates.

Read the rest here.

See also... Putin’s economy is running on fumes after Ukrainian attacks

Vatican Declares SSPX Schismatic

No surprise. They consecrated bishops without permission and essentially dared Leo to do something about it. Making matters worse, this is a flagrant second offense after the SSPX asked Benedict XVI to lift the original excommunications. Which he did. The Holy See has made quite a few concessions to a group that since its inception has basically set itself up in judgement over the pope and hierarchy of their own church. So yeah, I think Leo basically saw this as a slap in the face and decided that it was time to, in his own words, "move on." Rome is clearly not inclined to leniency at this point. The entire society including its lay followers are subject to the excommunication. And Rome has issued fairly stringent conditions for their readmission to communion, on an individual and case by case basis. Reading between the lines, this suggests that the Vatican has given up on a corporate return of the Society.