He predicts the Jizan refinery will miss its announced reopening. A commenter cites a Saudi announcement that the Jizan refinery will be open by August 15. He predicts it will not be, arguing that a public date invites more missile fire, and that attackers need not hit the plant at all, only fire at it, to slow operations.
This is a refined-fuel crisis, and it brings prices, not shortages. He repeats that the US will not see gas shortages "as long as you can afford it." Unlike a normal oil crisis, he argues, this one is about refined fuel, and he says it is nowhere close to over.
Major Attack On Saudi #gasprices #oilprices #explained #iran #straitofhormuz #iranwar
Iran's strike on Abqaiq removes supply without any blockade needed. He reports that on Monday, July 27, Iran struck Abqaiq, which he calls the world's largest single oil processing facility, handling 7 million barrels a day and half of Saudi Arabia's oil exports. With that volume offline, he notes, the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb both remain closed as well.
He says the crude price no longer reflects physical supply. He tells viewers not to look at the oil price. He alleges the president and wealthy associates are profiting by shorting crude on stories of "fake deals," and calls it a serious problem that oil can fall 10% while diesel falls 0%.
Iran War Update #gasprices #explained #oilprices #trump
A tanker leaving Iran's approved Hormuz route hit a mine. He reports that on Sunday, July 26, a tanker exploded in the Strait of Hormuz after striking a mine. Iran had agreed to let it pass on the approved Iranian route, but it apparently veered off course.
A fragile truce is already fighting over its own wording. He reports that the Houthis and the Saudis are still fighting, and that Iran has agreed to stop retaliatory strikes as long as the US keeps not striking it. Both sides are already claiming the other caved, and he expects this cycle to repeat "a half a dozen times" before it ends.
Equating opposition to the president with hating America is authoritarian. Responding to an opening clip whose captions are unintelligible, he argues the founders fought a revolution against a king precisely so loyalty to a ruler would not equal loyalty to the land, and made the right to criticize the powerful the First Amendment.
The claim collapses when applied evenly or to another name. If opposing the sitting president meant not loving America, opponents of Biden, Obama, Bush, Reagan and Lincoln would all be traitors, branding about 150 million people enemies on a rotating four-year schedule. Swapping in any senator or governor, he says, makes the sentence sound absurd.
Supporting Trump is not un-American either. He concedes millions back Trump out of their own reading of the national interest, and argues patriotism belongs to no party, so no politician gets to gatekeep it. Real love of country, in his view, means holding it to its own promises rather than falling in line.
The US is asking to end a war and being refused. The US has halted strikes on Iran and reportedly put three offers through mediators, all rejected. He lists the objectives as unmet: Iran fires more advanced missiles than at the start, there is no deal, the strait opens and closes like a broken valve, and the regime is confident enough to say no.
Ukraine's Caspian strike exposed a Russia–Iran arms pipeline. Ukraine struck a Russian warship and cargo vessels carrying Iran-linked military hardware on a route Kyiv says moves weapons between the two countries. He notes this came a day after Trump said it was not happening and that he trusted Putin.
Russian resupply explains why Iran's arsenal improved under bombardment. His reading is that every degraded stockpile was topped back up, so the enemy's ammunition was never finite. He calls it Moscow's cheapest, most effective military aid in modern history, pinning the US in the Middle East for five months, and says past presidents avoided war with Iran for this reason.
The war turns on endurance and supply, where the US is outmatched. He argues the US faced a patient coalition, Iran fighting and Russia arming, rather than one isolated adversary. He predicts that unless the US gets out, the Ukraine and Iran wars merge, and calls the position near checkmate.
Saudi Aramco Is Burning As The U.S. Desperately Wants Out
The Houthis' refinery strike deepens a trap the US built itself. He reports it confirmed that the Houthis hit Saudi Aramco's 400,000 barrel-a-day Jizan refinery on the Red Sea coast, their first hit on a Saudi refinery in years, plus facilities at Yanbu, where 75% of East-West pipeline oil exits. They also announced a Red Sea blockade, with about 5 million barrels a day of refined fuels already off the market.
Stopping direct attacks on Iran cannot end a franchised war. That night the US ran no strikes on Iran and, he says, spent it pressing to return to the MOU, despite Trump's pledge to hold Iran responsible for Houthi actions. With Saudi Arabia now bombing the Houthis in Yemen, he argues too many hands are on the throttle for the US to de-escalate alone.
Reviving the June MOU would be surrender to Iran. He argues its deliberate ambiguity handed Iran control of Hormuz and pulled the US deeper in, and he doubts Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance or Trump ever read it. Washington wants it as a face-saving exit, but in his view it does nothing about the Houthis, Saudi Arabia's war, the blockade or $100 oil.
Every option left carries a heavy cost, none a victory. Keep fighting and bleed against an enemy seeking exhaustion; revive the MOU and retreat while proxy war continues; or escalate and risk both chokepoints closing, oil off the charts and global recession. He calls it entirely avoidable, born of believing a $950 billion military could win quickly.
Falling crude will not bring falling gasoline. Oil fell over the weekend on deal talk, but he argues each refinery knocked out removes fuel from the market, so gasoline prices may climb. He expects a possible oil glut when this ends that cannot be turned into gas.
How Trump Intentionally Sabotaged Lower Electric Bills
The administration admitted cutting blue-state energy funding over votes. He reports it conceded in court that it cancelled loans and grants to blue states because they did not vote for Trump. He focuses on $6.2 billion specifically designed to lower energy bills, much of it in the PJM network.
The largest cancelled loan was transmission, not renewables. A $4.9 billion loan would have carried existing cheap Midwest power over high-voltage lines into PJM's most congested areas, cutting delivery costs he calls the network's main pain. He stresses no new generation was involved, so an anti-renewables rationale does not apply.
Trump chose rising bills he can blame on Democrats. Trump promised to halve everyone's energy bills; he concedes these projects would not have halved them but would have lowered them and stopped the climb. His reading is that Trump preferred cancelling them and blaming Democrats to taking credit, out of indifference, retribution and political expedience.
The dumbest political argument. #religion #educational #explained #trump #whocares #funnyvideo
Whether America is a "Christian nation" changes nothing legally. Whatever label is used, he argues, the laws and the Constitution stay the same: Christians, Jews and Muslims keep the right to worship and atheists keep the right to sleep in. Freedom of religion means the government stays out of it rather than picking a winner. A label that does not lower costs or fix roads, he says, is pointless.
Iran's flat ceasefire rejection signals it believes it is winning. Iran refused a US offer carried into Tehran by Iraq's prime minister, demanding a permanent end to the war rather than temporary truces, then paraded ballistic missiles through its capital. He argues no one rejects a ceasefire after nearly half a year of bombing from desperation.
Iran's missiles are now beating US base defenses. Citing an assessment from war-studies analysts rather than his own read, Iran has adapted with high-speed maneuverable missiles built to defeat the interceptors protecting American bases. He asks whether the program evolved under bombing or was resupplied, and calls either the opposite of victory.
Unconfirmed reports suggest outside help is widening the war. He believes reports that Iranian troops have deployed to Yemen to support the Houthis; he is unsure of reports of Chinese and Russian missile help. He also notes Iran's new letter of intent and MOU with Iraq.
The promised quick war has no plan and cannot be won. A one-to-two-week campaign is heading into its sixth month, with every response more strikes, blockades and American deaths. Iran's theory of victory is endurance, he argues, citing eight years against Iraq with half a million dead and four decades of sanctions.
The US should get out, having refused ground troops. He argues fighting a country four times larger than Iraq with air power alone was never viable, while costing service members' lives, rising gasoline and diesel prices, and missiles not deterring anyone in the Pacific. He is explicit that he is not endorsing ground troops.
People Say I Sound Concerned, It’s Because I Am. (Rant)
The administration neither foresees nor cares about the coming cost shock. He says the situation is without precedent, so no one knows what follows, and believes the administration lacks a clue and does not care because those hit hardest rate lowest with it. They have already lost safety-net, SNAP and health benefits and now face rising fuel, diesel, housing, electricity and food costs.
His warnings cannot be fearmongering to people already afraid. He answers critics on comfortable incomes, around $150,000 a year, that he is speaking to people who cannot absorb an extra $500 a month from a week of heat.
Officials seek war funding while cutting aid and enriching themselves. He says the administration is asking Congress for $1.5 trillion to continue a war he calls the dumbest in history, launched under false pretenses, while cutting children's cancer research and food aid. His deepest worry is being right, given how it has handled big problems.
Iran's campaign is now about controlling oil, not military retaliation. Oil jumped nearly $7 in a day to over $101 a barrel. He reads the shift as a campaign to control global oil prices and flows and punish countries worldwide for the attack on Iran, a view he says he held while many analysts did not.
Selective passage for Chinese tankers turns blockade into chosen access. Reports, which he believes, say two Chinese tankers transited the Bab el-Mandeb while most shipping avoids it, echoing early Hormuz. He warns China's resumed imports end the reduced buying that eased prices around June, and could shift the geopolitical balance.
Iran's refusal of "fake ceasefires" means no recovery pauses. Iranian officials say they will no longer accept truces that let the US and allies stabilize flows and restock before fighting resumes. He reads this as continuous pressure designed to maximize economic damage.
Uncertainty creates a shortage before supply physically runs out. Refiners, shippers, insurers and governments holding reserves cannot plan, he argues; Murban crude from the UAE jumped over $20 a barrel intraday. With Hormuz effectively closed, Bab el-Mandeb dangerous and Novorossiysk disrupted, rerouting breaks the supply chain links between oil in the ground and fuel.
Iranian troops in Yemen mark a full-blown energy war. Iran left the roughly 10 million barrels a day of Hormuz bypass routes alone at first, he says, but the Houthis have now shut the Bab el-Mandeb and Iranian troops have deployed to Yemen to hold it. He expects every family buying fuel or food to feel it.
Three major oil arteries are now being choked at once. He reports Hormuz closed (20 million barrels a day of crude and products before the war), tankers driven off the Bab el-Mandeb (about 4.5 million barrels a day, roughly 70 vessels a day before the Houthi attacks on two Saudi tankers), and Caspian Pipeline Consortium loadings near Novorossiysk halted after Ukrainian attacks on tankers — more than 1 million barrels a day, about 80% of Kazakhstan's oil.
One global market means each disruption tightens every other. He argues India, Europe and Asia will all bid for the same Atlantic Basin barrels, while ships rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope lose 30 to 40 days, burn more fuel, remove tanker capacity and triple delivery cost. He cites an estimate that Persian Gulf, Red Sea and Black Sea instability threatens a quarter of world supply.
The shock absorbers are already spent. He puts the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve at 310 million barrels, the lowest since 1983, with US and European refiners at their limits, Russian diesel exports gone and refining margins at $70 a barrel or more. He lays out the sequence he expects: tanker rates, then insurance, physical premiums, margins, wholesale fuel, and finally pump and grocery prices — with margins and wholesale already moving.
Iran wins by making the war too costly, not by fighting. In his reading, fear does the work: a missile costing a few thousand dollars threatens a tanker carrying $100 million of oil, so owners, crews and insurers enforce the blockade for Iran. He counts eight successful tanker attacks in the Iran conflict in two days, plus roughly 40 Ukrainian strikes on tankers in Russia over the past week.
Losing Fujairah would leave Gulf oil no way around Hormuz. The UAE's pipeline to Fujairah carries a couple of million barrels a day from Abu Dhabi to the Gulf of Oman, within range of Iranian missiles and drones; he calls its loss "checkmate" because supply would then be rationed by price. He says markets complacently expect diplomacy and reserves to cover it, and with US exports back at pre-war levels, he expects more tankers coming for remaining US barrels.
It’s The FAFO Phase #gasprices #oilprices #straitofhormuz #iran
Both Middle East chokepoints are now effectively shut. He reports that, as of July 22, a second Saudi tanker was struck in the Red Sea. He reads that as effectively closing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, with the Strait of Hormuz already closed, and calls it the nightmare scenario.
Russia's Novorossiysk closure doubles the oil off the market. He reports that Russia closed Novorossiysk, its largest export facility, which ships over 2 million barrels a day. He says this leaves twice as much oil off the market as during the worst part of the war a couple of months earlier. He expects Trump to ask Zelenskyy to "lay off a little bit."
He warns that even brief persistence of this outage turns severe. If the outage is sustained, he expects it to be "really bad." He says he cannot give a timeline but that it is "not that long," and that even a couple of weeks would be very damaging.
The Worst Case Scenario With The Iran War Just Happened
The Houthis have now shown they can close Bab el-Mandeb by force. A fully laden Saudi VLCC, too deep for the Suez Canal unless roughly half unloaded, U-turned north, then turned back toward the strait and was struck and set burning in the Red Sea well short of it. He says the strait had been shut without a shot until now; oil jumped over $1 on the report.
The strike pulls Saudi Arabia, and its refineries, into the war. He assumes Saudi Arabia will respond, which he expects to move its roughly 3.5 million barrels a day of refining capacity up Iran's and the Houthis' target list, with 5 million barrels a day already lost elsewhere. If Saudi infrastructure were hit the way Russia's has been, he says "the sky's the limit" on oil and gas prices.
He expects Putin to fall soon as Ukraine pushes Russia out. The piece opens on the report that Ukrainian drones hit 35 Russian ships in the Sea of Azov over 4 days, meeting nothing that stopped them. He calls Putin the biggest dictator of his generation and says he will celebrate the day it happens.
He blames Russia's failure on corruption, and draws a domestic parallel. His reading is that a powerful nation run by a strongman cannot beat a much smaller opponent because corruption wasted its resources, which he calls "eerily familiar." He adds that Putin's fall will be a horrible day for MAGA, which he says loves him.