Currency Woes Rack Central Banks

At WSJ, "Strengthening Currencies Bedevil Central Banks":

Britain’s vote to leave the European Union has set off a fresh round of currency pressures in the world’s largest economies, further complicating efforts by central banks to spur growth.

The pound hit a three-decade low on Monday, and both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings cut their ratings on the U.K., saying that last week’s vote raises risks to the country’s economy.

Meanwhile, the Japanese yen, Swiss franc and U.S. dollar posted further gains, as market turmoil resumed after the weekend and sent investors in search of havens. Government bonds also benefited from the flight from risk, with the yield on the 10-year British bond falling below 1% for the first time, as the rout in U.S. and European stocks deepened.

The currency moves, in particular, pose risks for businesses and in turn for economies that have posted lackluster performance.

The resurgent yen and franc are putting renewed pressure on companies in Japan and Switzerland. Meanwhile, U.S. companies that had benefited from a weakening dollar this year face a bout of currency-related stress as the second-quarter earnings season looms.

Stronger currencies tend to make a country’s exporters less competitive as the effective price of their goods goes up. They also tamp down inflation as import prices fall, frustrating outcomes for central banks in Japan, Europe and the U.S. that are trying to calibrate policies to boost growth and inflation. The moves could tempt central banks to intervene or modify policies to limit the upward pressure.

“Policy makers are unlikely to sit idly by while their strengthening currency derails any economic progress that they’ve made,” said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at international-payments firm Commonwealth Foreign Exchange. “Central banks would be justified in stepping in.”

The problem is currencies can’t all weaken at once. The Swiss have been trying to push the franc down against the euro. The European Central Bank has nodded to the benefits of a weaker currency as it lowers interest rates into negative territory and expands its bond-buying programs. Japan has tried to weaken the yen against the dollar. And Federal Reserve officials have cited the stronger dollar as an impediment to growth.

All are showing little success, and investors have raised concerns that central-bank tools for influencing currency values are losing their effectiveness...

Still more.

Deal of the Day: Up to 62% Off PetSafe Fountains and Feeders

At Amazon, Save on PetSafe Fountains and Feeders.

And, Save on Game of Thrones: Season 1 & 2 (here and here). High demand on those, no doubt.

But more here, Game of Thrones (Complete Seasons 1-5) - 23-Disc Box Set (Game of Thrones - Seasons One to Five).

Also, YouCopia Chef's Edition SpiceStack 30-Bottle Spice Organizer, White.

Plus, Matthew Cobb, Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code.

Thomas Levenson, The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe.

And still more, Joshua Hammer, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts.

BONUS: Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars.

Nina Agdal in Bikini at Coney Island

Via Egotastic!, "Nina Agdal Revealing Bikini In Coney Island."

Hat Tip: WWTDD.

FLASHBACK: "Nina Agdal: American Power's Woman of the Year for 2015."

BONUS: At Pirate's, "If All You See……is an evil rising sea because Other People drove fossil fueled vehicles, you might just be a Warmist." (That's some Lucy Pinder hotness, heh.)

The World Crisis of Illiberalism

From Sohrab Ahmari, at Commentary, "Illiberalism: The Worldwide Crisis":

According to the bland conventional wisdom, Americans frustrated by the failure of the establishment to address issues like immigration and economic inequality have turned to an unlikely pair of political outsiders, a New York developer-turned-reality-TV-star and a Vermont socialist, to set things right. This account is true as far as it goes, but it is also hopelessly parochial and inadequate to the scope of the changes afoot. Trumpism (and Bernie Sanders-ism) are but the American symptoms of a global phenomenon: the astonishing rise of illiberal movements of the far right and far left.

As an ideology and as a governing philosophy, liberalism is fast losing ground. “Liberalism” here is understood not as the American shorthand for those who vote Democratic in the United States, but as the philosophy of individual rights and (relatively) free markets that in theory is shared by the U.S. Republican Party and Scandinavian social democrats alike. As it fades, populism and identitarian politics of all kinds are gaining adherents nearly everywhere. Today’s illiberals are less likely to be organized around systematic philosophies like Fascism and Communism than was the case in the years between the two world wars—the last time liberalism appeared this vulnerable. In our time, illiberal forces are disparate, instinctual, inchoate, more likely to be local in focus, and internally divided. Often various illiberalisms are locked in combat against one another.

Nevertheless there are common patterns that range vastly different geographies and political contexts, suggesting that this illiberal ascendance will be a defining feature of the 21st century. Welcome to Planet Trump...

Keep reading (via Instapundit).

And ICYMI: "'No Free Speech for Fascists!' — Leftist Extremists Launched Violent Attack at Sacramento Rally (VIDEO)."

The #Brexit Moment of Truth (VIDEO)

This is a phenomenal commentary, from Pat Condell.

It came out a couple of weeks ago, and thank goodness Britons chose to leave that poxed Euro-dictatorship for good.

Watch, "The Moment of Truth: "Do we want to live in a sovereign democracy or a federal dictatorship?"

John Gillingham: The EU

This is timely.

At Amazon, The EU: An Obituary.

Frances Wang

Man, this lady was just bringing it home yesterday. She video'd the black bloc anarchists throttling the so-called "neo-Nazis," and especially captured the one dude getting rung-up on the back of his head with a 2x4.

Posted here, "'No Free Speech for Fascists!' — Leftist Extremists Launched Violent Attack at Sacramento Rally (VIDEO)."

And here's her bio, at ABC News 10 Sacramento:

I was warned to be careful because I'm wearing a bright color & could be confused for a counter-protestor. @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/ZWp9nejL0g

— Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) June 26, 2016

Sweating from running around trying to get everything for digital. Taking a break to charge phones. @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/WWieAjTxa1

— Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) June 26, 2016

Frances Wang joined the ABC10 reporting team in October 2015. She was born in San Francisco but grew up in Sacramento, which she considers home.

Frances has dreamed of being a journalist since she was kid after being interviewed by Walt Gray.

She's always been the most talkative of her peers, so her former teachers and classmates aren't surprised she became a reporter.

After graduating from St. Francis High School, she went on to become a Trojan at the University of Southern California. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors. During her time there, she also earned a second Bachelor's degree in Business Administration.

Most recently, Frances worked as a morning news reporter for KREM2 in Spokane, Wash., where she would cover breaking news one day and zip line through the mountains on live TV the next. She's also had internships at KABC-TV, CNN and E! News.

Frances' favorite part of her job is getting to know people she may not have met otherwise. She loves to tell stories about the amazing things people do for their communities.

In her free time, you can find her catching up on shows, trying out new restaurants, and struggling to get to the gym.

'Rock of Ages'

I picked my son up from work last night at midnight, and the Sound L.A. was jamming a fairly unusual playlist.

Def Leppard rarely airs during daytime prime-time drive-time, heh.

What a flashback to the '80s.

D'yer Mak'er
Led Zeppelin
12:34 AM

Don't Bring Me Down
Electric Light Orchestra
12:30 AM

Say You Love Me
Fleetwood Mac
12:26 AM

Come Sail Away
Styx
12:21 AM

Shake It Up
The Cars
12:17 AM

Rock of Ages
Def Leppard
12:10 AM

Killer Queen
Queen
12:08 AM

It's Only Rock 'N Roll (But I Like It)
The Rolling Stones
12:02 AM

Baba O'Riley
The Who
11:57 PM

Space Oddity
David Bowie
11:52 PM

Sweet Child O' Mine
Guns N' Roses
11:47 PM

The Logical Song
Supertramp
11:43 PM

Election '16 Bellwethers Ohio and Pennsylvania

From Salena Zito, at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Keep Your Eyes on Bellwethers Ohio & Pennsylvania":

Perception and reality are two different things in politics.

On paper, Republicans Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio should be losing in the polls in their U.S. Senate re-election races.

Both men have been hammered for a month over whether they will support their party's presumptive nominee, their opposition to voting on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee and their refusal to enact new gun legislation after the massacre in Orlando. Yet both are defying conventional political wisdom.

Toomey increased his lead over Democrat Katie McGinty by 8 percentage points in the latest Quinnipiac survey.

Portman's numbers improved by 9 points, placing him in a tie with Democrat Ted Strickland, a former governor who lost his re-election bid to John Kasich in 2010.

The two Republicans are competing in critical states that offer insight into whether Democrats can regain House and Senate majorities in November.

In short, if you want to know who will hold or retake the Senate majority, watch Toomey's battle with McGinty and Portman's with Strickland...

More.

Scenes from a Wedding

At the Other McCain:

Mrs. McCain, our son and his bride, and some old dude.
From my son's wedding Sunday
(Photo by @KirbyMcCain) pic.twitter.com/Uy2uzNzfwP

— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) June 27, 2016

Groveling Red Cross Takes Down 'Racist' Pool Safety Poster After One Single Complaint

At Biz Pac Review, "Red Cross apologizes for ‘super racist’ pool safety poster, as we all drown in an INSANE PC world."

Also at the Root, "Red Cross Apologizes After ‘Super Racist’ Pool-Safety Poster":

An American Red Cross signboard came under fire after showing white children being labeled as “cool” and the children of color as “not cool.”

Hey, @RedCross, send a new pool poster to @SalidaRec bc the current one they have w your name on it is super racist pic.twitter.com/TY8MmFB3Qk

— John Sawyer (@JSawyer330) June 21, 2016

'No Free Speech for Fascists!' — Leftist Extremists Launched Violent Attack at Sacramento Rally (VIDEO)

I don't shock easily, but the beginning of the video, when the black bloc anarchist, armed with a wooden club, smashes a protester in the side of the head, is mind-boggling.

Some of these activists from the Traditional Workers Party appeared indeed to be Nazis, as I found out after trolling around on Twitter yesterday. The only thing is, it was the leftists who started the violent attacks. Frankly, they set out to violently confront the so-called "white nationalists" and shut them down. So who's the extremist? Who's the real fascist?

Here's the event announcement from BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), "NO “FREE SPEECH” FOR FASCISTS! Mass, militant demonstration shuts down Sacramento Neo-Nazi rally!":

Insane video. Crowd sees any signs of "Nazis" and they run&attack. A lot of people bleeding/getting maced. @ABC10 pic.twitter.com/PoFhILfZ95

— Frances Wang (@ABC10Frances) June 26, 2016

PROTEST THE NAZIS/KKK IN SACRAMENTO!

No Racist Organizing in California!

No “Free Speech” for Fascists!

• SMASH FASCISM! NO PLATFORM FOR ORGANIZING RACIST VIOLENCE, MURDER, AND GENOCIDE!
• No Racist Demagogy! No Anti-Muslim Bigotry! No National Chauvinism, Fear Mongering, or Immigrant Scapegoating!
• Latina/o, Black, Native American, Arab, Asian, and White, Immigrants With and Without Papers, We are ALL Californians!
• Open the Borders! Full Citizenship Rights for All Undocumented Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum-Seekers Now!
• Build the New Independent, Integrated, Mass Militant Youth-Led Civil Rights and Immigrant Rights Movement!

Also, from Lee Stranahan, at Breitbart, "Officer: Left-Wing Extremists Started Sacramento Riot."

And get this, at the Sacramento Bee, "Activist Yvette Felarca says anti-fascist rally at the Capitol will prevent more violenceJun 26, 2016" (VIDEO):

Yvette Felarca, from the activist group By Any Means Necessary in Oakland, says their violent reaction to a white supremacist rally at the California Capitol Sunday will help prevent violence against immigrant communities by dissuading other supremacist groups from holding events.

The leftist MSM was lapping up the propaganda from this pig Felarca. Watch, at CNN, "Bloody protester: We took Nazis on."

Also, from Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, "VIDEO: THE INSANE SACRAMENTO NEO-NAZI/ANTI-FASCIST MELEE."

Frantic Efforts to Contain the Erskine Fire in Southern Sierra Nevada (VIDEO)

CBS News 2 Los Angeles has the video.

And from the front-page of today's L.A Times, "Kern County fire evacuees struggle with another trauma — uncertainty."

Babes for Trump

I noted the hashtag yesterday, "#TrumpGrilsBreaktheInterne." See, "Cristina Laila Breaks the Internet!"

And Heat Street has the follow-up, "‘Babes for Trump’ Want to Break the Internet."

'Babes for Trump' want to “make the Internet great again” with bikini photos #TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet https://t.co/HfZhrkIASj

— Heat Street (@heatstreet) June 27, 2016

I need them to admonish me 😫#BabesForTrump#TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet pic.twitter.com/6XwZvCbmHQ

— Roark Howard, Ph.D (@RoarkHoward_) June 26, 2016

#TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet pic.twitter.com/bBgLwdYzfx

— Baked Alaska™ (@bakedalaska) June 26, 2016

they have bros4hillary & bernieBros ... we have @BabesForTrump ... #TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet pic.twitter.com/kCwdi2a4we

— Steve Jones (@vincelauro) June 26, 2016

Labour to Hold Vote of No-Confidence on Leader Jeremy Corbyn (VIDEO)

The best part of the Brexit vote is watching the left's global nuclear meltdown.

At Telegraph UK, "Labour crisis: Jeremy Corbyn sees 33 shadow ministers quit as new MP is told 'keep your phone on, you might be in the shadow cabinet by end of day'":

Jeremy Corbyn has lost more than half his Cabinet and seen more than 30 of his MPs revolt against his leadership over the last 48 hours.

Mr Corbyn has lost 20 of his 31 strong shadow cabinet and seen a further 13 shadow ministers resign this morning.

The rebels have criticised his performance in the EU referendum and he faces further resignations from the junior frontbench ranks amid fresh calls for him to stand down as leader.

Jeremy Corbyn's grip on the Labour leadership looked increasingly weak as Angela Eagle became the most senior member of his shadow cabinet to quit.

Shadow housing minister John Healey, shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy and shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith have all resigned - adding to the 12 shadow cabinet members Mr Corbyn lost on Sunday.

Sources said that Mr Corbyn will refuse to step down and will instead try and make public a planned secret vote on his future so that voters can see which MPs are trying to unseat him.

Mr Corbyn has been forced to promote a number of key allies as the revolt against his leadership intesnifies.

A number of the 2015 intake have joined the new shadow cabinet with just a year's experience on the job.

Late on Sunday evening Mr Corbyn issued a bullish statement and vowed to continue as leader despite the resignations. He said: "I am not going to betray the trust of those who voted for me – or the millions of supporters across the country who need Labour to represent them.

“Those who want to change Labour’s leadership will have to stand in a democratic election, in which I will be a candidate.

“Over the next 24 hours I will reshape my shadow cabinet and announce a new leadership team to take forward Labour’s campaign for a fairer Britain - and to get the best deal with Europe for our people.”

More.

And David Cameron's got a good sense of humor about things, considering.

HBO's John Oliver Slurs Boris Johnson as 'Shaved Orangutan' and David Cameron as 'Pig-F***er' (VIDEO)

Jeez, this lefty loon John Oliver makes Bill Maher look like Miss Manners.

Ed Driscoll has it, at Instapundit, "TIME-WARNER-HBO-CNN SPOKESMAN JOHN OLIVER CALLS BORIS JOHNSON A ‘SHAVED ORANGUTAN’ AND DAVID CAMERON A ‘PIG-F***ER’ IN NINE-MINUTE ANTI-BREXIT RANT ON US TV."

And watch, "John Oliver: Brexit Results - 'There Are No F*cking Do Overs' Last Week Tonight - June 26 2016 (HBO)."

Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law (VIDEO)

I forgot we had another blockbuster case due this week.

Unfortunately, this one went the wrong way.

Jan Crawford has an analysis of the ruling, for CBS This Morning, at the video below.

And at LAT, "High court overturns Texas abortion restrictions":

The Supreme Court, in a victory for abortion-rights advocates, has limited the power of Texas and other states to restrict or effectively shut down clinics that offer the procedure.

The justices, by a 5-3 vote, said Monday that Texas lawmakers went too far by imposing unnecessary regulations that had forced most of the state’s abortion clinics to go out of business.

The decision is the court's clearest pronouncement since 1992 on abortion, and it makes clear that states may not impose health regulations that severely restrict the right to abortion...

More.

Also at Memeorandum.

Britain's Forgotten Voters - and Ours

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today:

America, too, is experiencing a populist upheaval, of which Donald Trump’s candidacy is more of a symptom than a cause.

So the post-Brexit number-crunching is over and it turns out that the decisive support for Britain’s leaving the EU came not from right-wing nationalists but from working-class Labour voters. This offers some lessons for British and European politicians — and for us in America, too.

Much of Britain’s prosperity in recent years has centered on London, which has done very well and become very pleased with itself. As Peter Mandler writes in Dissent, this turned out to be a problem. London occupies a huge place in British society — as if Washington, D.C., New York, Hollywood, and perhaps Silicon Valley were all in the same place. But that leaves the rest of the country feeling somewhat left out, and deeply suspicious of the people running things, especially as the people running things seem to hold the rest of the country in contempt, openly mocking the traditional, the middle-class, the non-Metropolitan.

Mandler writes, “London, a young, thriving, creative, cosmopolitan city, seems the model multicultural community, a great European capital. But it is also the home of all of Britain’s elites—the economic elites of “the City” (London’s Wall Street, international rather than European), a nearly hereditary professional caste of lawyers, journalists, publicists, and intellectuals, an increasingly hereditary caste of politicians, tight coteries of cultural movers-and-shakers richly sponsored by multinational corporations.”

The result, Mandler writes, is that “For the rest of the country has felt more and more excluded, not only from participation in the creativity and prosperity of London, but more crucially from power. . . . A majority of people around the United Kingdom are feeling like non-people, un-citizens, their lives jerked about like marionettes by wire-pullers far away. In those circumstances, very bad things indeed can be expected.”

Given a chance, these people seized an opportunity to give the wires a yank of their own. A lot of people felt powerless, and the political system not only didn’t address that, but seemed to glory in it.

But will leaders learn the lesson? It seems doubtful. As Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle observed about the post-Brexit reaction, they mostly seemed to double down. “The inability of those elites to grapple with the rich world’s populist moment has been on full display on social media. Journalists and academics seemed to feel that they had not made it sufficiently clear that people who oppose open borders are a bunch of racist rubes who couldn’t count to 20 with their shoes on, and hence will believe any daft thing they’re told. Given how badly this strategy had just failed, this seemed a strange time to be doubling down. . . . Or perhaps they were just unable to grasp what I noted in a column last week: that nationalism and place still matter, and that elites forget this at their peril. A lot people do not view their country the way some elites do: as though the nation were something like a rental apartment — a nice place to live, but if there are problems, or you just fancy a change, you’ll happily swap it for a new one. In many ways, members of the global professional class have started to identify more with each other than they have with the fellow residents of their own countries. Witness the emotional meltdown many American journalists have been having over Brexit.”

Keep reading.

And not surprisingly, Glenn gives a shout-out to Dana Loesch's new book at the piece.

Juan Uribe Testicular Contusion (VIDEO)

This game was a couple of weeks ago, but the Cleveland Indians' "Vote Tribe" Twitter feed just posted a photo of the man with some gold training shoes and a cigar.

So I tweeted:

I guess that "testicular contusion" is feeling better, man. #VoteTribe #Cleveland #JuanUribe https://t.co/jIbIHBDBYt

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 26, 2016

Deal of the Day: AR Blue Clean AR390SS Cold Water Electric Pressure Washer

A nice summer item.

At Amazon, AR Blue Clean AR390SS 2000 psi Electric Pressure Washer with Spray Gun, Wand, 30' Hose & 35' Power Cord, Blue.

Also, Featured Deals in Outdoor Recreation.

Plus, KIND Bars, Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt, Gluten Free, 1.4 Ounce Bars, 12 Count.

More, from Alex Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.

Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White, Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy.

And Bob Zubrin, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

BONUS: Dave Eggers, Zeitoun.