In France
Hours after unveiling his new government on Sunday evening, recently installed French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu handed in his resignation to President Macron, and at 27 days, he became the shortest-lived leader in modern French politics.
Sébastien Lecornu, a longtime ally of Macron, was installed by the embattled French President last month in the wake of the censure of the government of François Bayrou, which fell less than a year after the collapse of the calamitous government of former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.
Now, yet another Macron government has collapsed, with Lecornu resigning less than a month after being appointed and less than 12 hours after unveiling his cabinet of ministers. Macron accepted Lecornu’s resignation this morning.
At 27 days, this is the shortest Prime Ministerial term in the history of the Fifth French Republic, which commenced in 1958 when General Charles de Gaulle created a new constitution after a period of severe political instability. This situation will feel all too familiar today.
French newspapers this morning call the situation an unprecedented political crisis, with President Macron facing calls to resign as head of state and to call fresh national elections. There is almost no possibility whatsoever that Macron, attempting to build a new government with the tools available to him, will succeed. Given that France’s politics remain in a state of permanent crisis, without a parliamentary majority to make decisions or any consensus on how to fix the deeply debt-laden government, it may be that fresh elections are the only option left, and even those could return more of the same.
Lecornu had come to his office last month on a promise of reform and of getting the government’s finances under control, but had no support of the left or the right, and even struggled to keep his own allies in check. He said on Monday that “the conditions” for him to run a government “are no longer met” and accused other politicians of bad faith in not accepting that he was trying to do things differently from his many recent forbears in the Prime Ministers’ chair.
At the heart of the political turmoil in Paris today is Macron’s ill-advised decision to call for snap legislative elections in July 2024 in the wake of his party’s trouncing in the EU Parliament by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally the month prior. With the populist party having come out on top of the first round of voting and threatening to take control of the National Assembly, Macron made the Machiavellian calculation of forming a strategic voting pact with the leftist New Popular Front to keep Le Pen and her allies from taking power. Yet all these manoeuvres managed to achieve was a three-way split in the parliament, which has effectively made governing functionally impossible, with no faction having the requisite votes to pass a much-needed budget as the country stares down the barrel of a full-on debt crisis.
France waits to see whether Macron will appoint a sixth Prime Minister to try to form a government in an unordered parliament, or will call fresh elections.
Marine Le Pen and her National Rally on the right demanded that Macron give up the game and call fresh legislative elections. The populist leader was stinging in her condemnation of the 12-hour government as it was announced. Referencing the return of former Finance Minister Le Maire, who oversaw the French debt explode, Le Pen said: “The choice of this identical government, seasoned with the man who bankrupted France, is pathetic. We are left speechless.”
The Soviet Experiment
h/t Students for Liberty: “What the Soviet experiment really proved wasn’t that central planning is inefficient. It proved something more unsettling: large-scale systems can maintain the appearance of functioning for decades while being fundamentally broken underneath.
Think about what it means that the Soviet Union lasted 70 years despite central planning being mathematically impossible. Millions of people went to work every day in a system that everyone knew was failing. Factory managers submitted fake reports. Workers pretended the plans made sense. Party officials maintained the fiction of control while quietly participating in black markets themselves.
The system survived not because it was effective, but because everyone was invested in pretending it was. Admitting the truth meant admitting you’d wasted your life serving a lie. So people kept playing their assigned roles even as the gap between official reality and actual reality grew absurd.”
I’m so Triggered
Bullet Points:
** (right) Yeah, lion in winter. You don’t truly appreciate the situation until you’re there.
** Sen. (Crying) Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is howling that 10 million people are losing their healthcare. That may be true, but none of them are Americans.
** Barack and Big Mike Obama certainly deserve each other, but the tranny has started being nasty toward him publicly. What a thing to have to endure.
**Birthing centers are particularly popular among the Chinese, who are interested in having a baby and then returning to China. They charge around $30,000 per month to house the Chinese “visitor” – often in somebody’s garage – until the deed is done. The baby, a U.S. citizen, is eligible for a U.S. passport. We need to change the law so that this is no longer possible. No more anchor babies.
** Elsa doesn’t fear the reaper…and shares the latest music video.
** Do you NEED this ball cap? I’m thinking that EdB and BRM – definitely need to consider it.
** (Fox News) Over 50 Starbucks locations in New York City closed without warning, leaving both employees and landlords confused.
** Gold pushed above 3,900 dollars an ounce, logging a seventh straight weekly gain on expectations of more Fed cuts and shutdown jitters.
Precious metal pricing: Gold and silver usually give back gains when the “opportunity cost” of holding them rises. The most apparent trigger is higher real interest rates, as cooling inflation or firmer bond yields make cash and Treasuries more appealing than metals, which pay no income. A stronger dollar often pulls prices lower, too, since most global bullion is priced in dollars. If inflation and geopolitical worries subside, safe-haven demand wanes, and any pause in central bank buying or outflows from ETFs can exacerbate the move. On the supply side, miners locking in high prices by hedging or gradually increasing output can add pressure. Silver has an extra vulnerability, softer industrial demand in solar, electronics, and autos.
** Mortgages remain expensive by pre-2020 standards, since home loan rates tend to follow long-term Treasury yields, and those are still elevated. Affordability is stretched, so existing home sales are subdued, refinances are quiet, and builders are leaning on incentives like rate buydowns to keep new home activity moving.
** Is Minneapolis an Islamic Republic?
**Global trade tells a cautionary story. Container shipping rates fell for the sixteenth consecutive week to their lowest level since January 2024, indicating softer U.S. import demand following the imposition of tariffs and increased shipping capacity.
Another Bent Priest
Megachurch founder Robert Morris pleaded guilty Thursday to five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child. Morris, who founded Gateway Church in Southlake, agreed to a plea deal during a hearing at the Osage County District Court. Morris’ accuser, Cindy Clemishire, said Thursday she consulted on the plea deal, which includes a six-month sentence.
A Historical Interlude
On the night of October 5, 1863, Confederate torpedo boat CSS David, commanded by Lieutenant William T. Glassell, CSN, left Charleston Harbor to attack the casemate ironclad steamer USS New Ironsides. The torpedo boat approached undetected until she was within 50 yards (46 m) of the blockader. Hailed by the watch on board New Ironsides, Glassell replied with a blast from a shotgun, and CSS David plunged ahead to strike. Her spar torpedo detonated under the starboard quarter of the ironclad, throwing high a column of water which rained back upon the Confederate vessel and put out her boiler fires. Her engine dead, David hung under the quarter of New Ironsides while small arms fire from the Federal ship spattered the water around the torpedo boat.
Ukraine and Xi
(H/T Claudio – DR. Junhua Zhang) The world is witnessing an important turning point in the Ukraine war. The new strategy on the Ukrainian side, namely targeting Russia’s fundamental sources of energy and military industry within Russia, combined with its asymmetric defense of its territories with significantly less manpower than Russia’s, has proven quite successful. If this continues (long enough), it will very likely lead to internal turmoil and even protests against Putin’s war.
(VM Note: I doubt that the Ukrainian military actions will do much to stop Putin’s drive. The Russian public has a historical Slavic tolerance of adversity and suffering. They’ll suffer in silence. The Bolshevik Revolution was an exception to the rule, but I don’t see anything like that building.)
Even China’s observers today are discussing the worst-case scenarios of a possible defeat of Putin’s plan – not necessarily at the front, but within Russia. However, Xi Jinping stubbornly sticks to his seemingly neutral and de facto supportive stance for Putin, without realizing that it would be an excellent opportunity for China to win the favor of both the West and Russia if he took a completely new approach.
The author highlights what he terms a unique opportunity for China’s diplomacy to boost its influence and improve its image if Xi Jinping really wants to rescue Putin’s Russia. He needs to convince him not to be too greedy in territorial claims and to stop the war in favor of Russia’s future.
Unfortunately, Xi lacks the political wisdom of a world leader, and de facto, he is missing a unique chance for China by maintaining his support of Putin, both openly and secretly. Xi Jinping is also tarnishing China’s image in the world, particularly in Europe.
(VM Commentary: Putin has crafted his war as a patriotic duty to save Ukraine from itself and has characterized his war of liberation as repatriating Rodina’s (holy) soil. I think that Russia will continue until it runs out of Russians. At this point, I believe that Putin feels that’s his only option. If he stops the war, his closest advisors will put a bullet in his head.
VDH is under the impression that President Trump believes that lost Ukrainian territory can be recaptured with a ground game. I sense that President Trump has another option in mind, and that is to have Russia voluntarily relinquish what it’s taken and retreat behind its pre-war borders. I may be wrong, but that’s how I see the current Trump strategy.
Note: A blog reader asked when “Red October” is. The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia took place on November 7, 1917 (October 25 on the Old Calendar).
The Toad
Meanwhile, in Portland, another antifa idiot got a little hilarious justice, but hopefully has a lot more coming to him. Or possibly her. Let’s go with “it.”
It’s a weirdo named Seth Todd, who identifies itself online as Apollo Toad, “just a lil gay non-binary toad and proud Antifa terrorist.” (Wait ‘til it finds out from leading Democrats that Antifa doesn’t exist, and is just an idea!) Todd’s pic looks like either an effeminate dude or an unsettlingly butch gal; either way, you can understand why it attends protest events dressed in an inflated frog costume.
So Todd is toddling around outside the ICE facility with a clot of other miscreants and ne’er-do-wells and wastes of their parents’ tuition money, when a cop notices that the back of the frog costume contains a round vent with a fan drawing air into it.
The crafty cop gives the air vent a very hearty shot of pepper spray.
And in about three seconds, that frog started hopping like it’d never hopped before! I can only hope that an hour later, its eyes still burning and the frog costume ruined, it finally made it back to where it had parked.
Identify the Aircraft
1
Big Hint
Identify the Submarine
2
3
Identify the SPG/Armor
4
Hint: It was built on the chassis of the Valentine and featured a large superstructure that contained a 25-pounder gun. Although this structure resembles a turret, it is actually fixed in place. Its large, boxy appearance has led many to liken it to a “knock-off” KV-2.
5
6
Parting Shot
End
1 is Focke-Wulf 58B-20 Weihe
2?
3 is Soviet 613-class, diesel electric
4 British Bishop SPG
Good! Keep going.
1 – Bazil Focke-Wulf Fw 58 Weihe
2 – Russian Kilo-class B-265 Krasnodar
3 – Soviet S-189 Whiskey-class
4 – British Bishop QF 25
5 – Soviet KV-1E
I Forgot @6 – British A41 Centurion Mark I Prototype
Yes!
Excellent. Kle nailed #6.
(1) Fw-58 (Brazil)
(2) Looks like Kilo.
(3) Whiskey-class. Museum in St. Petersburg.
(4) Bishop.
(5) KV-1
(6) A41 Centurion prototype.
– Kle.
Hmm. We are all up early this morning!
– Kle.
France: Sure, it may be the 6th government this year, but I bet LeCornu qualified
for the pension, so the important part is done.
– Kle.
Exactly
I could use one of those caps as well since I’m rocking a few replacement parts.
Loved the toad story.
Love the hat. I should try to come up with something snarky for myself about having “appreciated” in value, as I underwent this procedure a few years back–
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https://prostate-center.com/radiation/markers/
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I recall one of the Billy the Kid movies mentioning Bob Bell’s corpse being worth $1.80.
@Angryolewhitefart below–See? I told you! I may have to start calling myself “Fitty-cent”.
At 8:00 MDT gold hit $4006.
Something is afoot…as “others” fiddle with markets.
Triggered: Do you really have to show photos of such ugly planes? Granted, BUFF isn’t as ugly as many of the British birds, and while BUFF can reach out to touch anywhere in the world with significant force without requiring four or five tankers, it is still ugly, noisy and filthy inside.
Wait for the rest of the week if you think that these planes lack grace.
“Hey France!, STOP digging!…you’ve reached the bottom of the hole.” Oy vey.
***
That’s a good ballcap…no replacement parts….yet, but a preemptive purchase isn’t much of a risk at this point.
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PDJT DFTR- THAT’S IS EPIC!…especially with Vought as The Reaper. hahahahah
***
#3 ID looks like a Cruise Sub…BUT…more importantly, do they have a buffet, and can you shoot skeet or hit a bucket of balls off the back?
Hit send too soon…more good fodder…
.
Is Minneapolis an IR? Yes…when you let the wolves into the hen house the hens get “displaced” and the place looks like the end of a horror movie…except in this case the hens still alive ask more wolves to dinner.
***
Mortgage Rates- Yes, another aspect of “destroying the American Dream one bit at a time” by those who believe they know better but continue to hamstring the young folk from achieving what our parents were able to do on $23k/year back in the 60’s and 70’s. (ProTip: Elites ARE NOT smarter than WTP, half of them got their money the old-fashioned way, cheatery in some form or another.)
Do you NEED this ball cap? Well I have certainly qualified for one – 3 joint replacements and a shoulder rebuild – Probably 1 more hip replacement coming up.
I didn’t get the prostate seeds to guide the radiation – They applied markers to my body for the alignment so I missed out on those
Is Minneapolis an Islamic Republic? YES and so is Dearborn MI
When you shuffle off this mortal coil, have them keep your clay intact so that when exhumed in the future you can provide a historical guide to ancient medicine.
“The (Economic) World according to Boron”
(“-“=sardonic)
as the dollar weakens, the price of gold rises, though there may be many other reasons for the price of gold to drop
the price of platinum appears to mirror that of gold, though not that of palladium for some odd reason (have not been following rhodium)
BTW: I am, in no way, a “gold bug”; it does not provide income unless you sell it: then you no longer have/own it; though the same holds true for “growth” stocks
From what I’ve seen of the French and their politics, they’re like fenced cattle. When the wind is strong from the North, they huddle on the downwind side. The same for when the wind is from the South. They’ll huddle under a tree on a hot day, and wander aimlessly most all the rest of the time. Regardless of anything, they are still cattle, have a herd mentality, and woe be anyone in their way when they stampede.
You have the conspirator’s grasp of the French mind.
“Is Minneapolis an Islamic Republic?” Is Texas? The muzzies sure are suing everyone to get exemptions for everything they do that causes complaints. That implies they’re not dominant enough to just do whatever they want. It’s commonly noted the pattern is “when a minority, scream for tolerance and minority rights; when a majority, squash the minorities.”
Report and Deport!
“lion in winter”
Never thought I would be a dirty old man, but here I am killing it!
__________
Need that hat! going on ten years now with a pacemaker.
__________
France
Should be be concerned? What national interests of ours are involved?
Regarding the Soviet Experiment. We propped them up in the late 30’s, the early 40’s, the 60’s. Selling and giving them food stuffs and war materials and more food stuffs.
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Without great external support, the Soviet experiment would have died along with the German experiment. They would have killed each other. I sometimes, okay more than sometimes, wonder how better the world would have been if all of our support during WWII went to Britain, the Poles, and, yes, the Free French, instead of propping up Stalin.
-As to Xi, he’s playing the long game. He knows, given enough time, that Putin’s Russia will collapse and he’ll be able to walk into Siberia which has all the minerals and space that he wants. Oh, sure, he could push for peace but how does that benefit him? He can, right now, still sell bad tires, crappy equipment and semi-rotten food to the Russians and bank serious money (probably actual metals rather than electronic funds) while waiting for Russia to run out of men and materials and money and time and food and… I know, I’ve said it over and over, but I don’t trust Xi at all. He’s playing, as I said above, the long game. He gets ‘sick’ or ‘disappears’ for a day and all sorts of pretenders come out and then Xi appears and the pretenders disappear. Same with his ‘support’ of Russia. Xi wins no matter what, unless China folds quickly.
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The Ukes have done the semi-impossible. They’ve stalled and pushed back the Russian Bear. Like Finland, but without Russia fighting elsewhere.
I’ll see your Cotton Boll and raise you Memphis Belle 4 from Barksdale https://www.facebook.com/AFmuseum/photos/a.10152058372902230/10156385724542230/
The soviet subs are a straight stick Whiskey and what looks like a Kilo 4B export model.
X2
“large-scale systems can maintain the appearance of functioning for decades while being fundamentally broken underneath.”
Well said. Please don’t mention the debt.