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Iran: No Plan. No Allies. No End in Sight.

Per Bloomberg, oil is around $112/barrel, Asia is experiencing scarcity of oil and gas, the Dow Jones is down almost 5,000 points from its high, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed and under Iranian control, and American forces are racing to find a downed American fighter pilot before the Iranians can find the pilot first. Meanwhile, the Felon and his sycophants - including Pete Hegseth who is unfit and far in over his head and firing generals based on either their skin color or perhaps their unwillingness to endanger more American servicemembers - have no end game/exit strategy from the Iran war that the Felon launched as a matter of choice.  The Felon's prime time address earlier in the week did little to instill confidence and his proposal to increase defense spending by 40% while slashing domestic programs, including Medicaid and Medicare will only further harm struggling Americans and large swaths of the MAGA base.  The overall take away is that there was no thought through plan for the war, warnings about the impact on oil prices were ignored, and long time allies have been insulted and alienated and, not surprisingly, are not rushing to save the Felon's very large ass from the mess of his own creation.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the mess now facing the nation - and by extension, the world. Here are highlights:

[The Felon] President Trump stood at a lectern on Wednesday night, in his first prime-time address to the nation since the war in Iran began, and declared the monthlong air campaign to be a success.

“We are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly — very shortly,” he said. “We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.”

For all his tough triumphalism, however, the {Felon] president failed to provide any evidence of a plan to resolve the two crises that now define the war and that have the potential to reshape the balance of power in the Middle East and the world economy for years to come.

The first crisis is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed before Iran’s military choked it off last month. The second is the lurking threat of Iran’s estimated 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, believed to be buried at one or two sites in the country.

Walking away from these problems would leave the world a much more volatile place than it was on Feb. 28, when Mr. Trump joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in attacking Iran. If the  [Felon]president does have a plan to resolve them, he didn’t reveal it. If he doesn’t, he’s leaving to chance their impact on America.

It has been just over a month since [the Felon] Mr. Trump authorized the largest American aerial bombardment mission in a generation. He did so seemingly without preparation for what to do if Tehran blocked off the strait, a danger that advisers have warned presidents about for years. He apparently made little or no attempt to build an international coalition. Our Gulf allies have spent the last month defending against incoming missiles while scrambling to stabilize a spiraling energy market and stave off a humanitarian catastrophe. The fighting has killed thousands of civilians across Iran, Lebanon and the Gulf and displaced millions more across the region.

Oil prices shot up and stock markets tumbled on Thursday after Mr. Trump did not offer any end in sight to the conflict, nor any plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.  . . . . Iran has now demonstrated de facto control over much of the global economy. Its Parliament is considering whether to formalize the charging of fees for passage, and on Wednesday, an Iranian official warned on social media that the United States would not regain access to the strait.

The other major problem is the nuclear question. After ripping up the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, [the Felon] Mr. Trump has tried but failed to reach another solution to address the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the key component for a nuclear weapon. That prompted the president to join Israel in a complex attack on the program in June. The stockpile of uranium — which Mr. Trump called “nuclear dust” in his speech, but is in gaseous form in real life — has been enriched to 60 percent purity, one small step from the 90 percent needed for the most powerful warheads.

Mr. Trump apparently intends to leave Iran in control of enough enriched uranium to make around 10 bombs. It was an astonishing demonstration of indifference that having conducted bombing campaigns against Iran twice primarily to crush its nuclear ambitions, the president is now prepared simply to walk away. Mr. Trump said again on Wednesday that he “will never allow” the regime in Tehran to get the bomb, but the world cannot have confidence in that assurance unless that material is seized, destroyed or made subject to international inspection.

Whatever quick fix Mr. Trump sought when he launched this conflict alongside Israel, he’s now facing the potential to inflict strategic consequences not only on the United States’ economy and its national security but also on its allies. He has publicly voiced displeasure over Europe’s unwillingness to send warships and attack planes to help free up the strait. That scorn for NATO allies wasn’t explicit during the address, but he alluded to it when he urged unnamed countries to “build up some delayed courage” to resolve the energy crisis. “Go to the strait and just take it,” he said, as if it were so easy.

America’s European allies have thus far determined that it’s not worth the financial and personnel risk to get deeply involved. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to watch an American president, the leader of broad military coalitions since World War II, go it alone. Perhaps the allies’ reaction would have been different if Mr. Trump hadn’t continually upbraided them over their military spending, or repeatedly threatened to take Greenland, or recklessly authorized a sweeping air campaign without alerting them.

“[The Felon] President Trump has done everything he can to isolate the United States from the rest of the world,” said Chuck Hagel, a former defense secretary and Republican senator from Nebraska who is a Vietnam War veteran. “Choosing to go into this conflict alone was self-destructive. He’s about to learn that wars have consequences.”

The conflict also caught many Gulf allies by surprise, placing them in the middle of a war they didn’t choose. The nations hosting U.S. forces — Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Bahrain — have all been targeted by Iranian drones and missiles. They’re now forced to question their reliance on the United States and the partnership they formed with Washington in hopes of bringing peace to the region.

The question of whether to go to war with the regime in Tehran has been weighed for over a half-century by eight presidents. . . . . Two key things prompted previous commanders in chief to opt for diplomacy over war: the bloody violence that they were advised was certain to follow and the stranglehold Iran has on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has spent decades developing weapons and military capabilities aimed at halting commercial traffic in the strait in the time of crisis.

[F]or now the core issues — Iranian control over the strait and its sizable stockpile of nuclear material — remain unresolved.

It’s not hard to understand why the president is tempted to walk away from these intractable problems: There aren’t easy answers to them. As the war enters its second month, it’s becoming increasingly apparent why Mr. Trump didn’t try to get buy-in ahead of time from allies, Congress or the American people for his war in Iran. He sold an unsellable war by not selling it at all — and now he’s belatedly looking for help footing the bill

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Trump Is Silencing Warning Signals of an Economic Crash

Oil and gas prices continue to rise - late yesterday on the spot market hit $141.00/barrel - due to the Felon's war of choice in Iran and mortgage rates along with over consumer prices are rising. Poll after poll show that the majority of Americans give the Felon a strongly failing grade his handling of the economy and the only ones benefiting from the Felon's/GOP's policies are the billionaire set and large corporations pushing for more and more deregulation, including deregulation of the the financial industries.  Think back to the 2008 financial meltdown and what could possibly go wrong economically? With most Americans realizing that the economy is headed south for them, one of the solutions of the  Felon's regime is to gut governmental agencies tasked with warning of economic problems and protecting consumers from unscrupulous and voracious lenders and others.  At some point, the situation may become so bad that we see a reprise of the 2008 disaster. A piece in the New Republic that looks at the efforts to remove financial guardrails at a time when they may be needed the most, especially with there being no signs of falling oil prices anytime soon.  Here are article excerpts:

If the United States economy is headed off a cliff, better that we receive no warning in advance. That may not be the stated goal of the Trump administration, but, to borrow a term from the late MIT economist Paul Samuelson, that’s its “revealed preference.” The preference in this case is revealed by Russell “Project 2025” Vought’s determined efforts, as director of the White House budget office, to shut down two agencies created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Dodd-Frank was Congress’s attempt to head off another catastrophe like the 2008 financial crisis. It was the first major financial overhaul since the Great Depression, and despite commentators’ general feeling that it never went far enough, bankers hated it. Now those same bankers want President Trump to gut two significant parts of it, and he’s obliging—at the very moment that the economy is teetering like a spring breaker at Panama City Beach.

The first of the two offending agencies is the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research, or OFR. This is a small office—it’s never employed much more than 200 people—dedicated to furnishing policymakers with the kind of detailed information they lacked during the late aughts about mostly-unregulated “shadow banks” such as mortgage companies, private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and the repurchase agreement market, or “repo.” This last provides overnight short-term loans to manage corporate cashflow. The Washington Monthly has called OFR “The Most Important Agency You’ve Never Heard Of.” Here’s a detailed summary of OFR’s accomplishments.

Every year OFR sends an annual report to Congress that’s written in a typically cheerful tone that downplays financial risks. Still, the necessary information is there if you look for it.  The latest report, covering the fiscal year that ended on September 30, noted that student loan defaults rose to 9 percent; that, at a time when private credit is stumbling, about 7 percent of the regulated banking system’s assets consist of loans to shadow banks; that hedge funds’ dependence on repo increased by 154 percent; and that growth in private repo (the Fed also has a repo operation) is off the charts. . . . . “If large lenders suddenly decide not to roll over repo,” the report says, “borrowers, many of which are securities dealers, must quickly find other sources of financing or sell assets, which may transmit repo market stress to other markets.”

The financial world doesn’t appreciate seeing the federal government advertise its vulnerabilities, even sotto voce, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who between 2019 and 2024 collected nearly $2 million in campaign contributions from the securities and investment sector, introduced during that same time period three successive bills to abolish OFR, which he called “useless and unaccountable.” Last year’s “One Big Beautiful” reconciliation bill initially zeroed out OFR’s budget, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled against that. So Vought took matters into his own hands. Having already halved OFR’s staff from 196 employees to 100, Treasury officials informed staff last month that 64 percent of the remainder will be laid off . . .

“As risks emerge in the financial system and cracks in the credit markets spread,” Senator Elizabeth Warren told Government Executive, “the Trump administration is gutting the office designed to evaluate financial risks in a giveaway to Wall Street. This is just the latest move by President Trump and his financial regulators to undermine financial stability and pave the way for another crash.”

The other Dodd-Frank agency Vought is trying to shut off is the better-known  Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB. CFPB’s function is not merely informational but regulatory; it polices abuse of consumers by financial institutions, which is epidemic. Already Vought has reduced CFPB to what E. Tammy Kim, writing last month in The New Yorker, called“The Zombie Regulator.” . . . . Now Vought, who since firing CFPB director Rohit Chopra has been the agency’s acting director, proposes to cut what’s left of the staff in half, from about 1200 employees to 556 employees. The agency had 1750 workers at the start of Trump’s administration.

The CFPB’s primary purpose is to protect consumers, but when financial institutions get busy trying to lure retail customers in over their heads, that’s often a sign that the economy is headed for trouble. In 2008 mortgage companies, ravenous for home loans to package into securities, sold subprime mortgages to customers who quite obviously couldn’t afford them. The result was the worst recession since the Great Depression. At the moment the financial industries perhaps most desperate to find new customers are private equity and crypto. Rather than examine how they got into this fix and take steps to prevent it from happening again, the Trump administration moved this week to “democratize” finance by proposing that 401(k)s be opened to investment in private equity and cryptocurrecies. The only democratization here is that of risk. If the rule is finalized, private equity and crypto will promise unimaginably high returns to non-wealthy investors who can’t weather a sharp downturn. When they go down, as I observed last September, the whole economy will go down with them.

Mike Pierce, a former deputy assistant director at the CFPB who’s now executive director of the nonprofit Protect Borrowers, told me Thursday that he thinks the next financial crisis will stem from private credit, which is different from private equity but often practiced at the same firms. Private credit is in the middle right now of a sort of slow-motion bank run due partly to its exposure to software companies. With household debt right now at $18.8 trillion, or well over half of GDP, consumers are taking out “increasingly risky” loans, Pierce said, with companies “increasingly intertwined … with private credit.”

The administration doesn’t publicize efforts to shut down OFR and CFPB because these agencies serve the interests of non-elites. If MAGA voters knew about OFR and CFPB they might actually like them! Another reason to be silent is that you can’t sell these cuts as fiscally conservative. Closing these two agencies would have zero effect on the budget deficit because neither agency is funded by taxpayers; instead, OFR is funded by assessments on banks and CFPB is funded by the Fed (which in turn is funded by assessments on banks and by interest on securities). The only reason to shutter these agencies is because they get on the financial industry’s nerves.

“The president is very focused on keeping the pieces of his coalition that are still willing to return his phone calls inside the tent,” Pierce told me. “These people have a line directly into the senior staff of the White House. They ask for the world and more often than not they get it.” What they want in this instance is to shut off any warning lights that might dare blink red about the economy. It’s bad for business, and if a bust is coming they’d prefer we suckers don’t know in advance. We may get crushed but the big players will get bailed out, like always.

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Public Anger Focused On the Felon/GOP Is Rising

The Felon's poll numbers are in the toilet on every issue and his address last night - I did not watch because I can't abide his lies or even his voice - is unlikely to calm the oil markets and/or bring gasoline prices down anytime soon.  Indeed, some of the Felon's remarks may have the exact opposite impact.  Meanwhile, the Republican controlled U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have been unable to pass funding for paying TSA agents at the nation's airports as the Felon demands that the misnamed "Save America Act" - which would disenfranchise literally millions of voters - must be passed as part of any funding solution.  As the third "No Kings" protest over the weekend displayed, millions of Americans are over the shit-show that is the Felon's regime, which congressional Republicans continue to pliantly rubber stamp. The level of public anger is growing and even the right wing talking heads are fighting amongst themselves over everything from the Iran war to other failed policies of the Felon.  One has to wonder what it will take for Republicans to grow a spine and rein in the Felon rather than cower and do his bidding. With the 2026 mid-terms ever nearer one would think Republicans would be getting a wake up call.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the public anger:

For a brief moment last week, Congress started to do something productive. The Senate, after weeks of bickering and fruitless negotiations, unanimously approved legislation to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, taking a small but meaningful step toward resolving one of the many crises that have sprung up like targets in a game of whack-a-mole during President Trump’s second term. All that stood between tens of thousands of federal employees and their paychecks was a similar vote in the House.

But House Republicans would not agree. Instead of considering the DHS bill, Speaker Mike Johnson denounced the bipartisan compromise and then sent the entire chamber home for a two-week Easter recess. The move all but guaranteed that the government’s third-largest department would remain unfunded indefinitely as the nation wages war against Iran. Meanwhile, as lawmakers enjoy time with their families—or jet off on vacations and taxpayer-financed junkets overseas—millions of Americans are struggling with a spike in gas prices caused by the war.

Public anger is rising rapidly. The president’s approval ratings—which were already anemic—have sunk to new lows, and Republicans are facing the prospect of an electoral wipeout in this fall’s midterm elections. The GOP’s hold on the House majority has appeared precarious for months, but now its more comfortable advantage in the Senate may be in jeopardy too. Even TMZ is channeling the national discontent: The website known for trailing  celebrities has begun hounding members of Congress, encouraging its readers to send in photos and video of lawmakers fleeing Washington, D.C., and living it up while the public servants responsible for protecting the homeland go unpaid.

Back in their districts, members of Congress—particularly swing-seat Republicans—seem to be in hiding. Hardly any are holding town halls or other well-publicized events that could put them face-to-face with frustrated voters. We contacted the offices of more than a dozen House Republicans in tight reelection races this year. Only Schweikert responded. No one else would agree to interviews about what they were hearing from constituents, nor would they disclose the events they were holding to solicit public feedback.

Trump did alleviate one pain point for the public last week by declaring that he would go around Congress to pay TSA agents, a move that reduced the snaking lines at airport-security checkpoints across the country. Wait times had stretched to hours as missed paychecks thinned the ranks of on-duty TSA agents, causing staffing shortages.

Yet the [Felon's] president’s unilateral action, though welcomed by lawmakers and air travelers alike, addressed only the most visible part of a crisis that has dragged on for weeks. Thousands of DHS employees, including members of the Coast Guard and FEMA, and administrative staff, have worked without pay for more than a month—and that’s after they missed paychecks during the larger 43-day government shutdown last fall.

In Congress, the dispute over DHS funding has centered on ICE and Trump’s mass-deportation campaign. After federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis earlier this year, Democrats said they would not agree to fully fund DHS without reforms to the way that ICE operates. They’ve demanded that ICE agents wear body cameras and not masks, and have asked for requirements that agents seek judicial warrants before entering private homes in search of undocumented immigrants. The two parties appeared to be making progress toward an agreement early last week before Trump scuttled the talks by insisting that Republicans tie any DHS-funding deal to passage of the unrelated SAVE America Act, an elections bill that Democrats staunchly oppose.

Schweikert’s House district in and around Scottsdale, Arizona, is one of the wealthiest and most highly educated in the nation. But its voters are livid at Congress. In interviews this week outside grocery stores, gas stations, and at the airport, many told us they were scrimping on food—cutting back on pricier meats and fruits—and others said they had changed their driving habits because of gas prices that are nearing $5 a gallon in some locations. Retirees, and those close to retirement, told us they are anxiously riding the volatility of financial markets amid the war.

Erica Squires and her sister Christina made trade-offs as they shopped for Easter goodies for their niece and nephew at Walmart. . . . The Squireses also are intentional about buying gas. They opted to fill up at the Walmart in Scottsdale, where they paid about $4.20 a gallon—less than in other parts of town. And rather than driving solo to visit their sister in a far-flung Phoenix suburb, they are now carpooling. Erica gave up shopping at a natural-grocery store because of rising prices. While they are hustling to make ends meet, the sisters told us, they don’t see Congress doing anything to make their lives better. If anything, they said, lawmakers are making it worse.

Others we encountered felt the same way. One young Democrat who works as a health-care administrator said his girlfriend’s luxury car has been sitting at home for the past month because it needs premium gas, which is almost $6 a gallon. He blames Congress: “It’s ridiculous.” A middle-aged woman whose truck sported a Don’t tread on me sticker matter-of-factly summed up her feelings about the country’s lawmakers: “Everything is terrible.”

The security lines had dissipated yesterday, a day after TSA employees began receiving back pay. Passenger frustration had not. Layton Martin, a Republican from Phoenix who was flying to Salt Lake City, told us that members of Congress were playing with the livelihoods of government employees for their own political benefit. “They’re having, like, an ego party,” the 28-year-old fitness trainer said. “It seems very childish.” Martin’s rent is up $300 compared with last year, he said; his cost to fly to Salt Lake was double the normal price, and his friends can’t find jobs.

Schweikert, the Republican who represents Scottsdale in Congress, seemed just as frustrated. He told us that he views the DHS shutdown as a symptom of a larger unwillingness by Congress to tackle the nation’s structural problems. . . . . His constituents, he said, complain that their wages haven’t kept up with inflation, so they are poorer today than they were five years ago and are stressed about rising housing costs and making car payments.

Schweikert said he would have been happy to stay in Washington over the Easter break if it had looked as though a funding deal was possible, but the votes weren’t there. He placed blame on everyone—“Republicans, Democrats, leadership”—who refused to sit down and keep negotiating. “One side is using their rage at DHS to raise money and the other side—my side—is often terrified to actually have detailed, mathematically honest conversations about population and immigration.”

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