The Felon Is Trapped in His Self-Created Energy Crisis

The price of Brent crude oil remains well over $100/barrel, the Saudi east-west pipeline is damaged and my be out of operation for months, Iran and its Houthi allies control two straits critical to the movement of oil from the Middle East, diesel fuel cost is at a record high - something that will push many other cost to rise, including groceries and building materials - and inflation is up with the prospect of the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates that will make mortgage rates increase.  It's an economic mess that has one common thread: the Felon's poorly planned war of choice against Iran is fueling most of it. Add in the Felon's tariffs and trade wars and the result is that rather than lowering costs "on day one" the Felon has made almost everything more expensive and there is no exit from the Iran war that isn't a de facto defeat for the USA. The Felon's only response is to lie and say the war and gas prices will come down shortly after the mid-term elections.  To anyone stupid enough to believe the Felon, I have some ocean front property in Nevada for them. A piece at Salon looks at the Felon's self-created debacle from which he has no exit. Indeed, expect the Iranians to continue to take actions to keep oil prices soaring as the Felon's lies to the American public get more desperate and far fetched.  Here are excerpts:

The first day of [the Felon's] Donald Trump’s second term was a national emergency, at least according to the president himself. On Jan. 20, 2025, he declared a “national energy emergency,” pledging to tap into America’s oil and gas reserves. As Salon reported at the time, experts said it was a false alarm. At the time, the U.S. was doing fine with its fossil fuel production. The bigger problem, one that Trump continues to deny, centers on curbing emissions and addressing our planet’s overheating problem. 

Roughly 18 months later, things have clearly changed. The nation is steeped in an energy crisis of Trump’s own making, largely due to his tariff agenda and war of choice with Iran. Despite a flurry of vague timelines and lofty promises, it doesn’t seem like we’ll be out of the woods any time soon. Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and the recent announcement that the U.S. will take control of the country’s oil fields to the tune of some 65 billion barrels, smacks of desperation. Yes, ExxonMobil has agreed to go along with the theft, but it may be more lip service to the president, as extracting oil from Venezuela would be extremely costly and risky compared to drilling domestically. At any rate, it will be a long time before we see the effects of those moves on gas prices, ethical and environmental ramifications aside.

Meanwhile, Trump keeps making promises that require more than a little faith. On Wednesday, right before he jetted off to his sad little ego-boosting convention in Dallas, the president stopped to talk to reporters at Joint Base Andrews. They asked him about the still soaring price of oil and a timeline for the end of the Iran war. First, he claimed that the U.S. is winning the war, that Iran is in shambles and its economy had all but collapsed, and that the American military even has control over the Strait of Hormuz. The worst will be over, he said, immediately after the November midterm elections. Or maybe a bit later than that.

Don’t get hung up on the timeline, he added. It’ll happen when it happens! Just trust me and vote Republican. That’s his pitch, anyway. 

The last time gas was $2 a gallon was during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for oil was destroyed because many people were staying home to avoid spreading a deadly virus. I can still remember how blue the skies in California seemed during that brief interlude.

[The Felon’s] only gotten richer as gas prices have jumped, thanks to his investments in the industry. A recent report from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee found that “President Trump saw his wealth go up by as much as $15.5 million just through stocks he owned in oil and gas companies at the end of 2025.”

It may not surprise you that Trump’s prediction about a sudden drop in gas prices seems unlikely. This week, oil came in at slightly over $104 a barrel, the highest it’s been since July, and on Thursday, diesel hit an average of $6 a gallon — for the first time ever. It goes without saying that the ripple effects this will have on shipping and agriculture, and thus food prices, will be profound.

The immediate follow up question was about whether or not there will be a new “nuclear deal” with Iran, something Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier this week might not happen any time soon, if at all. “There may not be a nuclear agreement. It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it. An agreement may await a next administration in Iran. We simply don’t know that,” he told ABC News on Sunday.

But Trump claimed he’d be “doing much more than a nuclear deal,” before immediately admitting that he wasn’t looking to negotiate at the moment. “Originally, I wanted to make a deal,” he said. “We’re so far down the line they have very little country left right now, so we’re not looking for it. Yes, a negotiation could possibly happen but it’s not something we’re looking at. This war will end immediately after our election.”

Isn’t that convenient? Both the Iran war and high gas prices are extremely unpopular among all voters, which virtually all political analysts predict could swing votes in favor of Democrats. Trump’s blustering response to all this is to keep calm and vote MAGA.

What we have here might be an example of the Tinkerbell effect, named for the “Peter Pan” character who could be resurrected from death by audience participation, i.e. belief in fairies. . . . . I don’t know if that’s great life advice or not, but it certainly feels germane to the Trump administration’s strategy. Just saying and believing something will happen will make it happen, right? Who would put it past this president to embrace woo-woo manifestation as domestic and foreign policy? There are other conclusions we might draw, of course, such as that the president actually has zero control over the situation, and that things are likely to get more expensive and more explosive before they get better.

He lost this war long ago, and his inability to recognize or admit that truth is what’s really choking the economy.