The Return of the Bond Vigilantes

The bond market is sending a message to Washington; get your act together. 

It looks like Wall Street is no longer willing to look the other way at the habitual dysfunction and fiscal profligacy in the nation's capital. With the national debt now exceeding $33 trillion (not including unfunded future obligations) and Congress paralyzed by partisan bickering, investors are no longer prepared to lend the US Government their money at dirt cheap interest rates. The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond has been flirting with 5% for most of the last week. That's the highest it's been since 2007. As the route in the bond market continues, with its potential to spook stock investors, the threat may go beyond the much steeper costs of borrowing by the Federal government. It is starting to effect interest rates for mortgages, car loans, credit card debt and borrowing money by businesses and state/local governments. In other words, if DC doesn't take steps to calm the bond market, it could start to affect the broader economy. 

CNBC's take.

On the other side of the debate, Warren Buffet disagrees. He thinks US government debt remains relatively risk free and current yields are attractive, especially for longer term investors. 

Casual state dinners?

The US hosted the Prime Minister of Australia at a state dinner last night and President Biden showed up dressed like an undertaker. You would think somebody in the White House would have a clue about protocol. 

The GOP: Is it time for a divorce?

End of an era: It’s time for the Republicans to break up

A reflection on the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgical reforms in an ecumenical perspective

“Where to look for genuine ecumenism?” An Eastern Orthodox Perspective

This is excellent. (HT: Dr Tighe)

What is the difference between Roman Catholicism and liberal Protestantism?

At the rate things are going, I'd say about ten years. This needs to be said plainly; what Francis has unleashed in the Catholic Church, is not reform. It's revolution. 

Some good news

Communion restored between Antioch and Jerusalem

Quote of the day

“He is unquestionably mentally unstable, and he is racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar and prone to violence. There is simply no rational argument that could lead me to vote for someone with those characteristics.”

-Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in a 2016 email to Chris Christie following Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump

Bibi Netanyahu

According to a new poll roughly 80% of Israelis hold Benajamin Netanyahu responsible for the pogrom of October 7 and the deaths of more than 1400 of their countrymen and fellow Jews. That number includes 69% of people who voted for Netanyahu's Likud party in the last election. 

Politically, Netanyahu is a dead man walking. The question is not so much will he have to resign, but rather how long will the other members of the emergency government be willing to allow him to remain PM? My guess is that as soon as the immediate crisis is passed, he will be gone. It's likely that there are already discussions taking place behind closed doors over the shape of the post Bibi political world.

Whatever one may think of his politics, I think Netanyahu is a tragic figure. This calamity will be the defining legacy of a man who dominated Israeli politics for more than a quarter century. I was going to compare him to the captain of the Titanic, but I think a better analogy might be J Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line. The Titanic's captain went down with his ship. But Ismay stepped into a lifeboat at the last minute and survived, for which he was vilified and probably spent the rest of his life wishing he had died that night. Bibi may be doomed to a similar fate.

On forgiveness and the state

In times past, kings wielded the power of life and death in God's name. But with that terrible power came the duty to exercise not only justice, but also mercy. I fear this is something we have largely forgotten in the modern world.

I found this to be quite powerful. 

Israel

Whatever Israel's sins, and there are many, they cannot excuse this butchery. This was a modern-day pogrom and should be so labeled. Hamas and the Nazis are differentiated only in minor details. The former being motivated by religious fanaticism and hatred, the latter by bizarre ideals of racialism. But they both share the same objective, the extermination of all Jews within their reach. And they need to handled the same way. 

There can be no negotiation with Hamas. No matter the cost, they must be crushed. 

Putin arrests Alexei Navalny's lawyers

Fascist dictators doing what dictators do.

A reminder that freedom is under attack all over the world, not just in Israel. 

The House GOP Is a Failed State

...McCarthy’s ouster is dramatic evidence, if redundant, about the state of the modern GOP. A party that used to have an instinctual orientation toward authority and order — Democrats fall in love, went the old chestnut, while Republicans fall in line — is now animated by something akin to nihilism. The politics of contempt so skillfully exploited by Donald Trump is turned inward on hapless would-be leaders like McCarthy with no less ferocity than it is turned outward on liberals and the media.

The GOP dissenters who joined Democrats in evicting McCarthy professed to be concerned about controlling spending, and some surely are genuine about that. In the case of Gaetz, the ringleader, it is clear the dispute is primarily about personal animus, not ideology. He wanted McCarthy’s antlers on the wall of his rec room, and he got them. Needless to say, there are many Republicans who are now hunting for him.

And, yet, in the nihilistic spirit of the age, it is worth asking of these intraparty feuds: Who cares? Certainly, in McCarthy’s case, it is far from obvious that anyone should care that much. He simply never made the case for being consequential.

Read the rest here.

Two on the Catholic's Big Synod

‘The assumption must be faced that Pope Francis is consciously breaking with the Church’s tradition’

Never a Dull Moment

HT: Dr. Tighe

FTR I am not a fan of Monomakhos' fairly reliable cheerleading for the Putin regime. My views on that organized crime syndicate masquerading as a government are well known to regular readers. But I think they have pretty much hit the nail on the head with respect to the heretical tyrant now sitting on the throne of Old Rome. Some see him moving the Roman Church closer to Orthodoxy. He is not. He is moving it towards (il)liberal Protestantism. 

Video of ultra-Orthodox Jews Spitting at Christians Sparks Controversy

A video of ultra-Orthodox Jews spitting on the ground beside a procession of foreign Christian worshippers carrying a wooden cross in the holy city of Jerusalem has ignited intense outrage and a flurry of condemnation in the Holy Land.

The spitting incident, which the city’s minority Christian community lamented as the latest in an alarming surge of religiously motivated attacks, drew rare outrage on Tuesday from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other senior figures.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis Hints at Homosexual "Blessings" and Openness to Female Ordination

The crisis in the Catholic Church is obviously accelerating at an alarming rate. The mainstream press/media are almost giddy at the revolution that appears to be in progress. In the meantime, the question must be asked; how long will "orthodox" Catholics remain in communion with open heretics? 

Details from what Fr. Z aptly refers to as "the fishwrap."

Thousands of Armenian Christians flee Azerbaijan rule

Thousands of Armenian Christians have fled their ancestral homeland in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh over the weekend and more are expected, the government of Armenia confirmed Monday.

“The mass exodus has begun,” Siobhan Nash-Marshall, a U.S.-based human rights advocate who has been speaking to witnesses on the ground, told CNA.

Nash-Marshall founded the Christians in Need Foundation (CINF) in 2011 to help Armenian Christians in the region, and in 2020 she started a school for children and adults in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Now, Nash-Marshall has received word from her school in Nagorno-Karabakh that “all is over” and that “people from all regions, all villages, are homeless” and without shelter, food, and water. 

Hundreds of ethnic Armenians are sleeping in the streets and cannot even drink water because they claim it has been “poisoned by Azeris,” according to Nash-Marshall’s contacts. 

Nash-Marshall was told that there are lines of “2,000 in front of the only bakery” near her school and that “all are hungry, frightened, and hopeless.” 

According to the government of Armenia, 6,650 “forcibly displaced persons” entered Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh since last week.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Sunday that he expects most of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh to flee the region due to “the danger of ethnic cleansing,” Middle Eastern news source Al Jazeera reported.

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

James II/VII

ABC News/Washington Post Poll Gives Trump Big Lead Over Biden

Both ABC and the Post moved quickly to cast doubt on their own poll. 

In mass protest, some British police are refusing to carry firearms.

Most UK police do not carry lethal weapons. This is a longstanding national tradition that enjoys widespread support both from the public and within the police itself. Great Britain has some of the strictest gun laws in the world with private ownership of handguns more or less illegal and rifles and shotguns subject to stringent regulation. Firearms related violence is rare in Britain and the overall homicide rate (per capita) is a fraction of that in the US. 

That said, around one in ten police are selected following a rigorous vetting process for specialized training in weapons that is generally much more intensive than what American police receive. It includes not only training in the use of guns and other weapons, but also comes with a heavy emphasis on de-escalation of confrontations, and critically, when not to use lethal force. Upon completion of their training these officers are given special certificates allowing them to carry firearms on duty. Many are assigned to routine mobile patrol where they can be called in quickly if needed to handle potentially dangerous situations. Others are assigned to elite counter-terrorism units while some handle security at important locations such as the Houses of Parliament. Still others are assigned to plain clothes duty as close protection officers for members of the Royal Family or senior government officials and visiting VIPs where they perform duties similar to the US Secret Service but with a reputation for being a bit more discreet. 

As a result of all this, police involved shootings are incredibly rare in the UK. But even so, they do happen. A few years ago, an unarmed young man of African descent was fatally shot by a police officer under circumstances that provoked a great deal of controversy. Last week that officer was charged with murder and the police are up in arms. (Pun intended.)

Within the ranks of London's Metropolitan Police, that's Scotland Yard to us Americans, large numbers of firearms certified officers have handed in their permits and weapons and are refusing to carry out armed police duties. They are protesting not only what many perceive as unjustified charges against a fellow officer, but what they see as the extreme legal hazard this is signaling for armed police in general. In a very high-pressure job where officers may be required to make life and death decisions in a split second, they are not prepared to risk being criminally prosecuted for making the wrong decision in the minds of uninvolved parties second guessing their actions. So many have in fact walked off the job, or at least this aspect of the job, that the government is considering calling out the military for situations that would normally be handled by specialized police services.

Read the latest details here. 

China Continues Aggressive Militarization of South China Sea Alarming Neighbors

...The world’s most brazen maritime militarization is gaining muscle in waters through which one-third of global ocean trade passes. Here, on underwater reefs that are known as the Dangerous Ground, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, or P.L.A., has fortified an archipelago of forward operating bases that have branded these waters as China’s despite having no international legal grounding. China’s coast guard, navy and a fleet of fishing trawlers harnessed into a militia are confronting other vessels, civilian and military alike.

The mounting Chinese military presence in waters that were long dominated by the U.S. fleet is sharpening the possibility of a showdown between superpowers at a moment when relations between them have greatly worsened. And as Beijing challenges a Western-driven security order that stood for nearly eight decades, regional countries are increasingly questioning the strength of the American commitment to the Pacific.

While the United States makes no territorial claims to the South China Sea, it maintains defense pacts with Asian partners, including the Philippines, that could compel American soldiers to these waters. Just as anxiety over nearby Taiwan has focused attention on the deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing, the South China Sea provides yet another stage for a contest in which neither side wants to betray weakness. Complicating matters, Chinese diplomats and military officers are engaging less at a time when open communication could help defuse tensions.

China’s arming of the South China Sea has also forced Southeast Asian fishermen — from nations like the Philippines that Chinese diplomats have referred to as “small countries” — to abandon the fishing grounds they have depended on for generations. It is putting tremendous pressure on those governments.

Read the rest here.