He reports new confirmation of Iranian tanker strikes. UK maritime authorities confirmed Iran struck a tanker at port in the UAE and an Iraqi tanker in the northern Persian Gulf, in addition to the missile strikes on US bases in Jordan, alongside ongoing reports of explosions in Iran and air-raid sirens in Israel.
He says diesel's next threshold is now a certainty, not a forecast. National diesel hit $5.94 a gallon with wholesale prices up 23 cents in a single session, putting it roughly 60% higher year-over-year and well past the 2022 record of $5.82 it broke last Friday.
EIA projections treat high diesel as a new baseline. The agency projects diesel will average $5.07 a gallon across 2026 and $4.40 across 2027 — up from about $3.65 in 2025 — which he reads as an institutional judgment that elevated fuel prices will persist well beyond any ceasefire, since destroyed refining capacity can't be rebuilt overnight.
He argues this escalation restarts the crisis from a worse position. He notes inventories at 20-year lows and 15% below the five-year average, Middle Eastern crude near $120 a barrel, a largely depleted SPR, China resuming oil purchases, and continued Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and expects the next two inflation reports to look "ugly" heading into the midterms.
Trump Admits War Unlikely To End Until After Elections
He reads Trump's admission as a bet on Iran's motives. Trump said the war is unlikely to end before the midterms but predicted it would end immediately after, a timeline he treats skeptically given Iran's incentive to maximize pressure through Election Day.
He reports a sharp market reaction to overnight strikes. The US sinking five Iranian tankers and Iran's retaliatory missile and cluster-munition strikes on bases in Jordan pushed Brent above $101 a barrel and Middle Eastern crude toward $120, with wholesale diesel up 23 cents and the national average at $5.94 and closing on $6; he says Iran's claims of hitting destroyers and multiple tankers are likely mostly untrue, and US casualty details from Jordan remain unconfirmed.
He expects gasoline to rise only modestly despite the jump. He attributes this to the seasonal switch to winter-blend fuel and falling fall driving demand, projecting the national average might inch up to around $4.25 unless oil prices climb significantly further.
They Told New Yorkers The Air Was Safe. They Knew It Wasn't.
Newly released records show officials anticipated mass lawsuits early. Roughly 170,000 pages released by the city, including an October 2001 memo, reportedly anticipated as many as 10,000 claims over toxic exposure and faulty protective equipment just weeks after the attacks, framed around limiting the city's financial liability.
He cites testing data and a Congressional warning as most damning. The records reportedly show asbestos found at location after location, and Congressman Jerry Nadler warned early on that asbestos levels exceeded acceptable limits, while officials internally reportedly worried his allegations would create a public-relations and lawsuit problem rather than a safety response.
He stops short of claiming proof of a deliberate lie. He says the documents don't show, for example, that a named official read a report warning of cancer risk and then knowingly told the public it was safe, but argues what they do establish — known contamination weighed against liability concerns — is damning enough on its own.
He reports the records were suppressed for decades. He cites 68 boxes of Department of Environmental Protection material that went missing despite years of Freedom of Information requests before turning up in 2025, and says a New York State court ruling on the city's record-handling helped force the settlement that produced this disclosure, with more records due over the next 12 months.
The U.S. Sinks 5 Iranian Tankers And Iran Responds With MASSIVE Missile Attack
CENTCOM confirmed it destroyed Iranian tankers off Kharg Island. He reports the US destroyed five tankers, citing Iranian missile fire at US naval ships as justification, while Iran responded with what he describes as 30 to 40 ballistic missiles fired at bases in Jordan, some reportedly carrying cluster munitions for the first time in the war, plus unconfirmed reports of explosions in Bahrain after Iran had warned it was coming for them.
He reads Iran's response as disproportionately large, again. He calls it the second time in a row Iran's retaliation has exceeded the scale of the US action that prompted it, and combined with three separate strikes on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure reported the same day, expects a volatile market reaction.
He argues price manipulation has failed to stop record diesel. He says that's because consumers buy refined fuel, not crude oil, and while he isn't ready to commit to predictions that national diesel will hit $6 a gallon within a week following new strikes on the Jizan refinery, he suspects those forecasts are right.
He argues the COVID response was driven by lethality, not overreach. He cites a nursing home outbreak in Kirkland, Washington, where 39 of the first 100 people who contracted the virus died, with no treatment yet available and no way to know who was most vulnerable — the situation he says produced masking, distancing, and stay-home measures.
He says the response likely saved lives. He estimates the pandemic killed around a million people, arguing the toll could have been two or three million without the countermeasures people now complain about, and that guidance evolved as more was learned about the virus.
He reads lingering pandemic complaints as eroded community and morality. He calls it ironic that some of the loudest complainers about masks and distancing also describe the country as a Christian nation.
The Houthi-Saudi conflict has escalated into full-scale war. He counts 73 people confirmed injured in the latest wave of Houthi ballistic missile strikes on Abha, Khamis Mushait, Najran, and Jizan, with the Jizan refinery struck for a third time and unconfirmed reports of hits on other Saudi Aramco facilities.
He argues this threatens Saudi Arabia's own Hormuz bypass. The East-West pipeline to the Red Sea has functioned as the kingdom's route for oil that can't move through the Strait of Hormuz — already disrupted from over 20 million barrels a day to roughly 8-10 million — and he says Saudi Arabia is now effectively surrounded, with Houthi threats from the south and west and Iran to the east.
He warns markets will price risk, not just lost barrels. He calls Saudi Arabia's spare production capacity the world's de facto emergency oil supply, arguing it only matters if refineries, pipelines, and ports can actually move the oil, and all three are now regular attack targets.
He reports Iran rejected a new US peace proposal outright. He says it was rejected without even being reviewed, notes China has resumed full oil purchases after earlier drawing down its own strategic reserves to ease prices, and argues the pain from this war will continue long after any resolution, since this is a long-term, not temporary, supply disruption.
He reports a shipping-fuel shortage developing beneath the diesel crisis. Reuters data shows the global fuel oil market has swung from a roughly 6,000-barrel-a-day deficit a year ago to about 220,000 barrels a day now, with inventories at major hubs like Singapore, Fujairah, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp running about 30% below normal seasonal levels.
He explains the shortage as a refiner trade-off for diesel profit. Refiners maximizing high-margin diesel and jet fuel output are producing less fuel oil, he says, compounded by Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries and Iran-war disruption to Middle East refining, shipping, and Kuwaiti fuel oil exports.
He says marine fuel prices are rising faster than crude itself. Very low-sulfur fuel oil in Singapore, the world's largest bunkering hub, is up 76% over the past few months, compared with roughly 40% for Brent crude.
He predicts this will compound diesel-driven inflation broadly. Rising bunker fuel costs push up freight rates and fuel surcharges that get passed to consumers, he argues, and he is watching Friday's August CPI report as the point roughly six months into the war when he expects these effects to start clearly showing up in inflation data.
Saudi Refinery Struck Again In Today’s Iran War Update
Iran threatened US energy firms for the first time. He names ExxonMobil, Chevron, Occidental, ConocoPhillips (with investments in Qatar), and EOG as firms now considered legitimate targets, following what Iran called retaliation for tanker strikes over the weekend; some had already suffered asset damage, but this marks the first direct threat against them.
The Houthis struck Jizan again as repairs neared completion. He notes the 400,000-barrel-a-day Aramco refinery was first hit about six weeks ago and has been struck repeatedly since each time it neared restart; wholesale diesel rose 15-16 cents today to $5.90 a gallon, though he expects only a modest near-term retail move since wholesale prices had recently fallen back to about this level.
Iran is expanding its closure claim beyond Hormuz. He reads Iran's announcement covering the entire Gulf of Oman and Persian Gulf as an attempt to stop the ship-to-ship transfers smaller tankers use to move oil out before loading onto larger vessels, but says he doubts Iran can enforce a full closure any more than it managed with Hormuz itself.
The Truth About Oil And Gas And The Power It Gives The U.S.
Fossil-fuel policy is sold as independence but is really about US leverage. He argues continuous fuel dependence gives suppliers lasting power over buyers, unlike equipment dependence, and points to the Venezuela oil-revenue takeover and Trump's executive order creating a National Energy Dominance Council, which he says explicitly ties energy policy to diplomatic and commercial leverage over other nations.
Renewable energy threatens US leverage, not its security. His distinction: a gas-fired plant needs continuous fuel deliveries that can be cut off, while a solar farm needs only occasional equipment and parts — sunlight already reaching panels already built can't be embargoed the way fuel supply can, which he says is why the administration frames renewables as unreliable.
The "cheap fossil fuels" argument doesn't hold up on cost alone. Citing a 2025 assessment he attributes to "Arena," he says more than 90% of newly added utility-scale renewable capacity generates electricity more cheaply than the cheapest fossil-fuel alternative, though he concedes that figure excludes transmission, storage and balancing costs for a fully reliable system.
He reads the fossil-fuel push as a bid for Western Hemisphere control. He cites Venezuela, Greenland and Canada as examples, and predicts a Venezuela or Canada that shifted to renewables would strip the US of the leverage this policy is meant to create — while acknowledging renewables carry their own dependence on foreign-made equipment and minerals.
The U.S. Just Admitted To Controlling Venezuela And Forcing Them To Deal.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright inadvertently described coercion, not partnership. Wright said the US "controls the sale of [Venezuela's] oil outside of their country" and that Venezuela "is forced to work in partnership with us" — he argues calling forced cooperation a partnership doesn't change what it actually is.
The new US-Venezuela oil deal locks in American control for a century. He cites Trump's January executive order, which keeps oil revenue nominally Venezuelan property but puts its disbursement under the US Secretary of State, plus a reported 35% US equity stake, Pentagon-linked capital, and American veto power over the operating company's board appointees.
He questions who actually had authority to bind Venezuela for a century. The Associated Press reported that Venezuela's ruling-party-controlled National Assembly voiced support for the agreement but held no debate and took no vote, leaving unclear what legitimate process approved commitments meant to outlast generations of Venezuelan voters.
US financial stakes in the deal create an incentive against Venezuelan democracy. Drawing on a Cato Institute analysis, he argues a future democratically elected Venezuelan government would likely seek to renegotiate or cancel the arrangement, and that Washington's growing equity and preferential-purchase interests give it reason to resist exactly that kind of political change.
Tanker For Tanker Policy Meant To Open Strait of Hormuz Likely Closes It.
The tanker-for-tanker formula produced an exchange, not a deterrent. The US struck and disabled or destroyed three Iranian crude tankers; Iran then fired on six vessels and hit three of them with precise cruise-missile strikes, a "three for three" trade he says shows Iran will happily pay the announced price and double the order.
The trade is asymmetric: disposable ships against the world's essential oil supply. Iran's fleet consists of aging, sanctioned, largely uninsurable "ghost fleet" tankers bought cheap because they're already liable to seizure, while the vessels Iran strikes are newer commercial tankers insured by Lloyd's of London and carrying oil for companies with no part in the war.
Iran's stated justification effectively claims authority to license passage through Hormuz. Iranian state media said the tankers it hit were on an "unauthorized route," meaning unauthorized by Iran — the exact licensing power he says the US went to war six months ago to deny Iran, and one each new US strike now hands it a pretext to exercise.
He warns the strait can be closed without a formal blockade. He says moving the fight into the 20-mile-wide channel that carries roughly a fifth of world oil could push shipowners to avoid the route and insurers to demand war-risk premiums that make transit uneconomic; he also speculates that Iran's earlier roughly 15–20% strike success rate, versus this weekend's precise three-for-three hits, suggests it deliberately underperformed earlier to lull the US.
BREAKING: U.S. Strikes Iranian Oil Tankers After Attack On U.S. Navy
US forces struck three Iranian oil tankers in retaliation. CENTCOM said the strike followed Iranian missile fire at a US aircraft carrier and destroyer; two tankers were permanently disabled and a third, reportedly empty, was destroyed, and Admiral Brad Cooper warned the US is prepared to "completely destroy" Iran's limited and exposed fleet if necessary.
He warns of an uncontrolled escalation cycle if Iran retaliated again. He cites initial, unconfirmed reports that Iran fired cruise missiles at US naval assets following the tanker strikes, noting that several prior reports of Iran targeting US vessels over recent weeks were never confirmed by US Central Command.
Oil and diesel prices were already at extremes before markets could price in the strikes. Brent closed the prior day at $96.28 a barrel (up over 7.5% for the week) and WTI just under $92 (up about 10%); the national average diesel price hit a record $5.88 a gallon even with crude roughly $30 cheaper than during the last diesel record.
He treats oil infrastructure itself as now a weapon in the war, not collateral damage. He says destroyed tankers change risk pricing for every owner and insurer moving oil through the region, compounding already-drained global inventories and lost production, and states his biggest fear is a successful Iranian strike on a US warship, which he thinks could dwarf today's escalation.
Scott Bessent Says $40 Dollar Oil Is Coming. Here's Why He Is Wrong.
He argues Bessent's $40 forecast ignores that inventories must rebuild first. The IEA puts global observed oil stocks about 450 million barrels below pre-war levels; at a net build of 1 million barrels a day, refilling that gap alone would take roughly 450 days, even if the war ended immediately.
Shut-in Middle East production may not fully return after peace. He cites Saudi Aramco's August estimate of more than 2.5 billion barrels in cumulative disrupted supply, Wood Mackenzie's note that restarting damaged fields requires extensive gas-handling and pipeline work, and the EIA's expectation that 600,000 to 1 million barrels a day of disruption persists through the end of 2027.
Rising demand as prices fall will absorb much of any returning supply. He notes the EIA and IEA both expect global oil demand to climb by roughly 2.4–2.5 million barrels a day in 2027 as prices ease, meaning much of the additional oil pumped won't be free to rebuild inventories or create a surplus.
Even the EIA's own optimistic forecast implies $70 oil, not $40. That August forecast projects 109 million barrels a day of production against 105 million of consumption — numbers he calls overly optimistic — yet still prices oil near $70, and he notes that figure is roughly the breakeven needed to drill new US wells, so $40 oil would instead collapse domestic production.
Iran Has Fired On Tankers 3 Times Since We Implemented The Tanker For Tanker Policy
Iran has repeatedly tested the tanker-for-tanker policy without consequence. He reports Iran fired on tankers on three separate occasions and hit 13 commercial vessels in August alone, while the US went roughly 30 days without retaliating after a single night of response.
The administration denied an Iranian missile attack it later partly confirmed. He reports Iran launched missiles at Jordan, the UAE, and possibly Kuwait, and that Jordan confirmed firing interceptors to shoot them down, even as officials maintained the attack "didn't happen" because nothing was hit.
Trump's inaction reads as tied to the diesel price record, not deterrence. He reports AAA put diesel at $5.85 a gallon, 3 cents above the prior all-time high, and argues that once the record broke, Trump "doesn't have anything to protect anymore."
A huge oil futures bet ahead of a holiday weekend looks suspicious. He reports someone bought 3,000 contracts worth $275 million wagering oil would rise, calls it possible market manipulation, and predicts a weekend escalation followed by a declared peace before Monday's open so the position could be cashed out — worth roughly $3 million per $1 rise in oil.
A Country That Can't Be Told The Truth Can't Be Saved By It.
Admitting a lie and backing it anyway is a loyalty test. He argues Trump supporters who say "I know he lies, I don't care" have stopped judging him as a truth-teller and started judging him as a weapon that "hurts the people I want to hurt," making the lie itself the appeal rather than a flaw.
Defending an obvious falsehood proves loyalty precisely because it costs something. He invokes Hannah Arendt's argument that propaganda's goal isn't belief in the lie but destruction of the public's ability to tell truth from falsehood, leaving people too exhausted and cynical to do anything but pick a side.
A government facing no penalty has no incentive to solve problems. He argues that once voters stop demanding truth, "the claim of a solution pays exactly the same as the solution," so officials get rewarded for announcements instead of results.
Tolerated lies will leave the public unable to spot real emergencies. He predicts that when a genuine crisis requires the government to tell the country something true and urgent, the message will fail because people have been trained to assume "the podium is just selling."
Tolerating dishonesty from your side sets a precedent for the office. He warns that future presidents of any party inherit a public that has already agreed dishonesty is acceptable, leaving today's defenders with no argument when the same lie is told by someone they oppose.
The Price Of Diesel Just Set An All-Time High For Donald Trump
Diesel broke its all-time national price record. Citing Patrick De Haan of GasBuddy, he reports the national average reached $5.82 a gallon, beating the previous record of $5.81 set June 17, 2022, and argues Trump now "owns" it despite blaming Biden for high fuel prices before.
The annual average diesel record is also now at risk. He reports 2026 is running just below 2022's record annual average of $4.99 a gallon, but diesel would need to average $5.25 for the rest of the year to avoid breaking it — and today's $5.82 is already $0.57–0.58 above that pace.
Diesel costs feed into nearly every consumer price in the economy. He argues rising diesel raises trucking, freight, farming, and construction costs that work through the economy with a lag, and predicts the next inflation report will show a bigger increase than recent ones.
Record-low distillate inventories are the supply-side driver. Citing EIA data, he reports stocks of diesel, heating oil, kerosene, and jet fuel are at their lowest ever, pointing to reduced Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries (some now reopening) offset by continued Houthi attacks preventing Saudi Arabia's Jizan refinery from restarting.
He expects the price rise to taper but calls the outlook uncertain. He notes wholesale diesel edged down today and guesses prices could climb for a few more days before leveling off, but says continued Iranian attacks make the path impossible to call.
Iran Escalates As Reports Circulate That Trump Wants Out
The Wall Street Journal reported Trump may declare victory and leave Iran. He notes he is skeptical because this White House sometimes plants false leaks that are later debunked, but says Iran's immediate large-scale missile and drone attack on Kuwait makes this report harder to dismiss.
Withdrawing now could teach Iran that gas prices force American exits. He argues that if Iran widened the war, raised oil and diesel prices, and made Americans suffer only to watch the US leave, it would create "a pricing mechanism for American resolve" that adversaries could exploit more efficiently in future conflicts.
Iran again tested the tanker-for-tanker policy with cruise missile strikes. He reports this came alongside the Kuwait attack, with cruise missiles fired at tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and reads it as Iran probing whether the US will actually follow through on a retaliation policy it has not enforced so far.
Declaring victory doesn't end a war only Iran can end. He argues Gulf Coast states and Israel, which joined the US campaign against Iran, would remain exposed to continued attacks even after an American withdrawal.
He ties a possible US exit to avoiding a Biden-topping diesel record. Even so, he concludes that despite the risk of rewarding Iran's escalation, withdrawal may still be the least-bad option given how bad the overall situation in the Middle East has become.
Washington's promised Venezuelan oil rebuild has not drawn major investment. Eight months after the Trump administration said US oil companies would fully rebuild Venezuela's oil infrastructure, he reports no major deals, only small ones by service companies and independents. Restoring the old fields is expected to cost about $180 billion.
The administration is now weighing direct US government ownership of the fields. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is traveling to Venezuela for talks on the US taking a large stake. As he describes it, the administration's reasoning is that a government stake would make US companies less reluctant to invest their own money there.
He argues a stake would be a taxpayer subsidy to oil companies. He guesses the stake would cost around $50 billion of public money. On his reading, it pays US oil companies to do what the administration said they would do anyway. He calls this "the American form of socialism" replacing Venezuela's.
He considers Venezuela the highest-risk place to commit such money. He points to Venezuela's long history of not paying its debts. In his view, that history is exactly why large oil companies have refused to commit capital there in the first place.
A detained fiancée's Trump-voting partner frames it as his own injury. In a clipped interview, the man, who calls himself a law-abiding business owner who pays a lot of tax, says he feels "totally betrayed" after his Venezuelan fiancée, who he says let her permission to stay lapse, was locked up. He counts six times the man says it "happened to me."
He questions why media spotlight those best placed to stay legal. His point is that people with money and resources who still let their status lapse, after watching the administration's mass deportations, are odd figures to hold up as victims. He closes by joking that "a cool million" works for pardons, so it might get her out.
The Bab el-Mandeb closure is shaping the Hormuz negotiations. He argues markets are missing that the effective closure of the Red Sea strait is weighing on the talks, and attributes a rise of about $3 a barrel in oil on the day to it.
The reported Iran–Oman deal would hand Iran control of Hormuz. As he describes its terms, Iran could charge transit fees of 5–7%, the US and Israel would be barred from the strait, and other hostile countries would be shut out until they pay Iran reparations for war damage. He notes about 500,000 barrels a day bound for the US passes through it.
Either US response to the deal pushes oil higher. His reading is that the deal does not reopen the strait, so prices rise whether the US accepts it and leaves or rejects it and keeps fighting. He expects the administration to claim credit and declare Hormuz open to knock prices down before a weekend, then resume the war, as he says it has done repeatedly.
The deal adds no oil flow; it only delays. He puts current Hormuz flows at roughly 10–20% of pre-war levels, depending on the source, and says the deal changes none of that. Wholesale gasoline and diesel had mostly given back their drops after Trump's latest retreat on Iran, each up about 10 cents a gallon on the day.
Gasoline set a date record and may set a Labor Day one. The national average was $4.06 a gallon on August 6, which he says is the highest ever for that date; 2022 was this high on August 5 but fell below by the 6th. The Labor Day record he expects may fall is $3.83 a gallon.
Trump Says Affordability Is Made Up. Your Bills Say Otherwise. The Stats Are Shocking.
Affordability was a Republican promise, not a Democratic invention. He rebuts Trump's claim that Democrats made up the word by pointing to the 2024 Republican platform, whose promise number three was "End inflation and make America affordable again", with a whole chapter on lower housing, health care and energy costs. He accepts the crisis began under Biden, with inflation over 9% in June 2022, groceries up 12.2% and energy up 41%.
Slower inflation has not reversed the price level. As of June 2026 he cites consumer prices still rising 3.5% a year and the price level about 27.7% above January 2021. His point is that a lower rate means prices rise more slowly from a higher base, not that they fall.
Housing now takes roughly double the income it did in 2020. Median new and existing home prices exceed $400,000, existing prices are up 54% since 2020, and the monthly payment on a median home went from $1,700 to $3,100, requiring over $120,000 of income versus $66,000. A two-bedroom rental needs just under $35 an hour against average renter pay just under $25; 13 million low-income renter households keep a median $200 a month after housing.
Energy and health costs are survival costs that families cannot cut. He cites energy up 15.7% year on year in June, gasoline up nearly 27% and electricity up 4% per kilowatt-hour, after nearly 45% growth since COVID, and says total bills rose more. Family employer health plans cost nearly $27,000 with about $7,000 from workers; per the Federal Reserve, 26% of adults skipped medical care for cost, and 10% stopped prescriptions.
Food insecurity and thin savings show the crisis is real. USDA data he cites put 48 million people in food-insecure households, and 318,000 households with children where a child ate less. Per the Fed, only 63% can cover a $400 emergency and 16% missed bills last month; he adds that 43% of full-time US workers do not earn a livable wage.
The "communists want to cancel Thanksgiving" claim is recycled outrage. Answering a clip of a pundit saying "these communists hate America" and want to cancel Thanksgiving and Christmas, he lists earlier supposed cancellations (hamburgers, gas stoves, Mr. Potato Head) and says grocery prices are the only thing cancelling Thanksgiving. He adds that people say such things because much of the audience believes them.
Senator Martin Heinrich On American Power Podcast #gasprices #oilprices #straitofhormuz #iran
Heinrich says nobody around the president restrains his public statements. Asked on the American Power Podcast whether anyone tells the president to stop antagonizing adversaries and allies and "straight up lying," Senator Martin Heinrich says he had hoped Marco Rubio would play that role and that Rubio "has proven incapable." The host calls such statements very damaging to the United States.
The episode is pitched as solutions-focused energy and intelligence talk. He notes Heinrich is ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and sits on the Intelligence Committee, says they covered about 10 topics, and describes him as caring more about solutions than politics. The episode is on podcast platforms and the Find Out Media YouTube page.
Take Away The Political Speak And What You Have Is Iran Is Still Attacking Every Day.
Iran says the Oman deal will not open Hormuz. Per Iran's statement as he relays it, there is no US–Iran deal, and talks with the US on the strait can only begin once the US lifts all sanctions, releases frozen funds, ends the naval blockade and publicly accepts Iran's right to charge Hormuz transit fees.
The attacks have continued even as the US has stepped back. He reports Iranian missiles fired at Bahrain, another tanker struck in Hormuz, and a Houthi strike on a Saudi-flagged tanker in the Red Sea that was sinking. He reads this as showing Iran is not begging for a deal.
Trump's credit-claiming is obstructing an end to the conflict. He reports Iran suspended talks with Oman because Trump kept taking credit for a deal the US is not part of. He says the administration once asked Iran to ignore Trump's domestic remarks as politics, a request Iran has never honoured because, in his reading, it wants Americans to see it win.
The Bill For A Hotter Planet Is Already On Your Table, And It's Getting Higher Every Year.
Heat is already raising household power bills twice over. He cites an EIA warning this summer that bills would rise because higher temperatures require more cooling energy, while the price per unit of electricity is also rising faster than inflation. Air conditioning is about 12% of average household energy cost and roughly 17% of the electric bill nationally, far more in hot regions.
Cooling is a survival cost paid before anything else is cut. He argues that in record-breaking summers air conditioning separates a safe home from a dangerous one, so families pay it first and cut other spending around it.
Ratepayers will fund a grid build-out the size of three economies. Citing the IEA, cooling is the fastest-growing source of buildings energy demand, rising nearly 4% a year to 2035, with global cooling energy on track to triple by 2050. Meeting it would need new capacity roughly equal to the US, EU and Japan combined, which he says lands on bills through every plant and transmission line.
Warming and air conditioning feed each other in a cost spiral. He cites a study this year finding mostly fossil-powered AC intensifies the warming that drives more AC use, and adds that power plants, refineries and factories all run less efficiently in heat. France hitting record consumption peaks in the 2025 heat waves is his example of grids buckling.
Efficiency and conservation are the cheapest fix, but urgency is lacking. The same IEA analysis found aggressive efficiency could cut cooling costs in half, and he calls conservation by far the best way to reduce energy costs. He warns viewers in cheap-power areas, like his own Oklahoma, that the higher bills are coming to them too.
Defend The Data #covid19 #covid #vaccine #explained #data
Fauci's critics attack him because they cannot rebut the data. Responding to a clip asking whether Fauci's defenders show "cognitive dissonance or Stockholm syndrome," he says he defends the data, not the man. He says nine of the 10 states with the highest COVID death rates were Republican and nine of the 10 lowest were blue, and he attributes the gap to whether states followed the recommendations.
He cites vaccination and masking as measurably reducing deaths. By his figures, an unvaccinated person was 53 times more likely to die of COVID than a vaccinated one, and areas that practised masking and social distancing, even without vaccines, had a 13% lower death rate. He gives no source for either number.
Iran and Oman Will Make a Deal Without The U.S. and We Will Have To Take It Or Leave It.
Iran and Oman are negotiating Hormuz without the US. Each time details leak and the US objects, Iran replies that the talks are between it and Oman. From what he pieces together, Iran would control inbound traffic, share outbound control with Oman, and collect a 7% transit fee shared with Oman, with Russia and China exempt.
Such a deal would reopen the strait only partially. He says it would not restore pre-war oil flows, but it might lower prices somewhat ahead of the midterm elections.
The US will weigh which humiliation costs less politically. His reading is that the choice is between accepting Iranian control and fee-charging, or escalating and driving prices back up. He expects the administration to bet that Americans forget fast and would accept around $3.50 a gallon gasoline in exchange for Iran controlling the waterway.
Trump's "one ship, one bridge" threat has been ignored without consequence. On July 22 Trump posted that the US would destroy a bridge or power plant in Iran, including in Tehran, every time Iran fired on a ship in Hormuz. By his count Iran has since hit about one ship a day, three in the last two days, and no bridge or plant has been struck.
An automatic, announced trigger made the failure worse than a broken promise. He argues a threat built to deter even one shot instead taught Iran, through repeated tests, that the president's most specific threats are free to ignore.
The whole war has followed a threat, deadline, retreat pattern. He cites April deadlines for strikes at 8 p.m. Washington time, promises to take control of Iran's oil industry and to attack at levels unseen since World War II, a declared end to the ceasefire, and announced deals Iran denied. He says there was no military build-up to back the larger threats.
He is not arguing the bridges should have been bombed. He calls destroying civilian power plants and bridges in a capital a war crime and says the restraint may be the only sane decision; his complaint is that words are a weapon and Trump has spent them down to nothing.
Lost credibility leaves only bluffing or forced escalation. He argues American credibility once deterred adversaries cheaply, and that its loss will register with China, Russia and allies. The two options left are to keep bluffing and lose credibility, or to follow through on something extreme to save face and lose control.
Trump Demands Oil Companies Give Profits Back To The People
Trump says the oil majors' war profits belong to the public. Exxon Mobil and Chevron posted a combined $26.5 billion profit in one quarter, their best in years, which he attributes to the Iran war lifting oil from below $60 to over $100 a barrel and to soaring refining margins. He notes Republicans would call such a demand communist from a Democrat.
The oil majors sold into a price spike they did not cause. He considers the profiteering critique legitimate but disagrees with it, arguing Exxon and Chevron did not bomb Iran or push oil to $120, and asking whether they should withhold supply to avoid the label.
Iran alleges Trump's advisers traded on inside knowledge of ceasefire talks. Iran names Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and puts their gains at $9 billion. He stresses this is an unproven allegation from a wartime adversary; the White House denies it and the Vice President called it bogus. He says US oil analysts and traders raised it first, and he believes it happened because bets of up to $1.5 billion shorting oil were placed moments before announcements.
Scrutiny of war profits disappears as it nears Trump's circle. He argues the same question draws "give the money back" for a faceless corporation and "fake news" for the president's advisers, the only variable being proximity to the president.
Alleged insider trading deserves an independent investigation, unlike public earnings. He distinguishes legal, published corporate profits from secret trading on classified negotiations, which he likens to insider trading with a security clearance. If oil companies should open their books, he says, so should the advisers.
Trump Says There Is A Deal. Iran Says There Isn't.
The White House announced a deal that Iran flatly denies. Over the weekend the White House said strikes were cancelled, "parameters of a deal" agreed, Hormuz would open immediately and Iran would give up its nuclear program; Iran replied there is no agreement. He reads "parameters" as what one says when there is no deal.
Iran fired on shipping almost as the deal was announced. Anti-ship missiles were launched at a tanker within 2 minutes of Trump saying there was a deal to open Hormuz. He calls this the tell: the strait the deal was meant to reopen was effectively closed again as the deal was being declared.
Vague announced deals have produced the next round of war. He points to the June memorandum six weeks earlier, celebrated as opening the strait, whose ambiguity over who controlled it left the two sides with different readings and, in his view, caused the current phase.
Iran refused an offer giving it effective control of the strait. Citing Reuters, Al Jazeera and the BBC, the last US offer gave Iran inbound control and Oman outbound control, which he says amounts to full control, since there is only one way out of the Persian Gulf. He infers Iran wants more and expects any eventual deal to be very bad.
Judge any deal by tanker movement, not announcements. If ships move next week there was a deal; if the strait keeps opening and closing and missiles fly, he calls it theatre. He reads renewed COVID and women's sports debates as distractions from the lack of a deal.
The shortage is in refined fuels, not crude, for now. With over 7 million barrels a day of refining capacity offline, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel are tighter than oil, which is why pump prices have not followed crude down. He expects crude shortages to join them once strategic reserve releases onto the global market end.
Exxon's record quarter came disproportionately from refining. Its profits were the highest in four years, with about 38% from refining against a normal 20–22%. He explains that Exxon buys crude and sells products on commodity markets, and does not own the stations or set pump prices.
Talking crude down widens refiners' crack spreads. His reading is that fake ceasefire announcements push oil to $75–80 a barrel while product markets, which cannot be talked down the same way, still price gasoline and diesel as if oil were $100. Integrated companies with refining profit most, and would profit upstream instead if crude were higher.
We’ve Offered Iran Basically Everything And They Still Say No.
The latest US offer effectively gave Iran control of Hormuz. Per the reports he calls credible, Iran would control all inbound traffic and Oman the outbound, which he says amounts to the same thing because there is no other way out of the Persian Gulf. He reads the offer as a sign of how desperate and trapped the US is.
Iran rejected it to drag the war out. Iran demanded both inbound and outbound control. His reading is that Iran understands the offer and is deliberately prolonging the conflict to damage Trump as much as possible.
Any deal now may hurt Trump more than continued war. He notes Iran called Trump's claim of a deal framework fake news the day after he cited it to call off strikes. Who is telling the truth matters less, he argues, than that the war is not ending and the strait is not open.
The US will not run out of gasoline. Responding to a clip claiming refining capacity may be down 40%, he puts it at about 7%. Inventories are about 6% below the five-year average, but supply barely moved from 23.9 to 23.6 days over a month, and US refineries make about 1.5 million barrels a day more than domestic use, rising to 2–2.5 million after summer.
The real risk is fuel-driven inflation, not shortage. He argues diesel inflation in particular spreads across the economy, and that fuel will be available "as long as you can afford it", which is itself the crisis. The US may trim exports, and other countries could face severe shortages.
Striking Iran's energy infrastructure would bring his worst case. He doubts the strikes planned for that day will happen and calls them a mistake. If they do, he expects everything to get very expensive and stay there for a long time, though still without the US running out of fuel.
Escalating to force rejected terms shows there is no strategy. Six months in, the reported plan is one of the war's most intense bombing campaigns on Iran's energy infrastructure, to force acceptance of ceasefire terms Iran has rejected three times. Iran answered that it would strike energy infrastructure across the Middle East, which he says no side can win.
The war has reached American water systems. US intelligence assessed Iran was likely behind a coordinated cyber attack on more than 30 municipal water systems in Minnesota; he stresses it is a suspected assessment. He says seven states were hit but only Minnesota is named, and notes Trump's cuts to CISA, the agency that defends critical infrastructure.
Targeting infrastructure teaches adversaries how to hurt the US. His argument is that once grids, water and cyber sabotage are legitimate targets, the lesson cannot be unlearned: enemies will skip armies and go for barely defended civilian systems, for a generation.
None of the war's objectives has been met. He says Iran's missile program is more advanced than at the start, the strait is mostly closed with tankers struck daily, the regime is defiant, and there is no deal, yet the plan is more of the same.
The ceasefire was torn up for an avoidable war. He argues there was a ceasefire and an off-ramp, both discarded, and that the promised quick win, cheap gas and peace through strength became $100 oil and domestic vulnerability. He reads the silence of the "5D chess" crowd, and debates like COVID and women's sports, as avoidance.
Charges over the reflecting pool damage were dropped on a contractor fault. He reports that US Attorney Jeanine Pirro filed on a Friday to drop charges against David Hogg, who had been arrested over damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026. The damage was found to come from flawed installation by the contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which he calls a Trump associate.
He argues Hogg should sue the officials who publicly condemned him. He suggests suing the Justice Department for false arrest and imprisonment, and Pirro, Karoline Leavitt and Doug Burgum for defamation. He cites a statement that Hogg "forcefully and violently pulled up the reflecting pool liner" and Leavitt calling him "a deranged individual," and says such rhetoric put Hogg's life in danger. He offers to donate to a legal fund.
They Are Always Behind Me #gasprices #oilprices #explained #straitofhormuz #iran #trump
Exxon's CEO now confirms pump prices follow refining, not crude. In a clip, Exxon CEO Darren Woods says a refinery constraint means pump prices are set by supply and demand for refined products, which is why crude has not risen as fast as expected and product prices did not fall as crude came down. He says he has told his followers the same thing, nearly word for word, for two months.
The energy secretary's diesel-relief timeline keeps getting longer. A clip of the energy secretary says bringing diesel prices down will take "another year or so" of Trump's leadership. He says the promised timeline has moved from two weeks to two months to four months to six, and now a year. He argues the administration caused high diesel prices, and expects another year of them to mean another year of rising inflation.
Time To Investigate Big Oil. But Not For Price Gouging
Big Oil should be investigated for insider trading, not price gouging. He calls the gouging probe a cover, arguing gouging is implausible because over 150,000 retailers would have to be involved. He frames the alternative as a question he is not alleging as fact, while insisting someone is trading on inside information.
The odd-hour trades match big oil trading-desk time zones. He points to billion-dollar oil shorts at 5 a.m. ten minutes before Trump announcements, which is business hours in London, and sales at 10 p.m., which is daytime in Singapore. The majors keep trading desks in both and need not disclose individual trades, and he argues trades that size need senior approval.
Hedged production cannot explain the reported profit surge. The majors reported profit increases of 400%. If much of their oil is hedged at $70–75 a barrel, he asks how companies capture $90–100 oil except through futures trading arms. He grants refining earns a lot but says more money is coming from somewhere else.
Talking prices down robs other traders and worsens fundamentals. Noting Scott Bessent said the administration will keep exploring ways to drive oil lower, he argues that doing it this way takes money from uninformed traders and blocks the usual cure for high prices: more production and jobs.
This Is Eerie #gasprices #oilprices #explained #straitofhormuz #iran
The world's largest oil export terminal sits empty of tankers. He shows a satellite image of Ras Tanura with no ships present, and reads the marks on the water as oil slicks from tankers that have been bombed.
He says the administration is talking about anything but Iran. He points to talk of prosecuting Dr. Fauci over vaccines, which he notes Trump has called his greatest achievement, and to a revived focus on men and women in sports. In his view both are diversions from the war.
Iran's latest attack was a "surprise" only to the unprepared. On Wednesday, July 29, he mocks officials calling the new Iranian attacks a surprise. He puts crude up by roughly $6–8 a barrel on the day and says the crude figure barely matters any more.
Wholesale diesel is the price to watch, and inflation follows it. He reports wholesale diesel up 23 cents a gallon in one day, a huge single-day move, against about 7 cents a gallon for gasoline. He expects diesel to drive US inflation and says delaying the consequences of the Middle East conflict does not mean they will not arrive.
Iran Attacks Us Again #gasprices #oilprices #explained #straitofhormuz #iran
Iran keeps attacking because it reads Trump's priorities as weakness. He reports that on Tuesday, July 28, Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at US forces stationed in Jordan. He reads this as Iran exploiting Trump's eagerness for a ceasefire and his worry over gas prices and poll numbers, which he says show more concern for popularity than for Iran's nuclear capability.
He expects no real US retaliation and an Iran playing for collapse. He predicts the US will back down again, and argues Iran will keep going "until the global economy collapses," which he calls its goal. Unlike Trump, he says, Iran does not care about polls or being liked, only about winning, so the US has "absolutely no chance" of winning the war.