Trump fires another woman

 

Trump fires Attorney General Pam Bondi

... “Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900,” the president wrote.

“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future,” Trump said.

Bondi, in a statement on X, said, “Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration.” ...

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican whose bill mandating that the DOJ release all files related to Epstein became law in late 2025, said in an X post, “I support Trump firing Pam Bondi. Do you?”

“I hope the next AG will release all the Epstein files according to the law and follow up with investigations, prosecutions, and arrests,” Massie said. ...

 

Trump keeps calling Iran's leadership "new" as if that means there's been real change when the current president assumed office in July 2024 lol

 Trump says Iran’s president asked for ceasefire, but U.S. wants Hormuz Strait open first

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Iran’s “New Regime President” has asked the U.S. for a ceasefire. ...

A broken clock is right twice a day

 Trump calls U.S. ‘STUPID’ for birthright citizenship after attending Supreme Court arguments

It's embarrassing to have a whiny little baby for president demonstrating everyday that he's not up to the job of being the leader of the free world

 Trump lashes out at UK and France, telling allies ‘the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore’

... “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!,” he concluded. ... For its part, Tehran continues to demonstrate its ability to dominate and derail maritime traffic in the strait, hitting a fully laden Kuwaiti oil tanker in the anchorage area of Dubai’s port earlier Tuesday. 

Trump says "we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)"

 Trump says U.S. will destroy Iran’s oil wells, Kharg Island without deal to ‘immediately’ reopen Hormuz Strait

He thinks this is a bargaining chip instead of a requirement.

Fed chair Jerome Powell didn't say the oil shock will be transitory, but he might as well have

 

 ... Powell said raising rates now could have negative effects on the economy later. He noted that Fed rate moves have a lagged impact on the economy, so tightening here wouldn’t help the inflationary impact of the Iran war.

“By the time the effects of a tightening in monetary policy take effect, the oil price shock is probably long gone, and you’re weighing on the economy at a time when it’s not appropriate. So the tendency is to look through any kind of a supply shock,” he added. ...

More.

Mistaken yet again.

We have permanently higher prices across the board as a result of the COVID shock. 

Tiger needs a new d r i v e r

 Tiger Woods arrested for DUI after rollover car crash, Florida sheriff says

 

GOP-controlled US House says Nay Nay to GOP-controlled Senate bill funding DHS, meaning more DHS shutdown, et cetera et cetera et cetera!

 

 TSA funding update: House GOP spikes DHS funding proposal, extending shutdown that’s caused delays

... The stopgap measures advanced out of the House Rules Committee on Friday, teeing up a vote as soon as later this evening. ... Any such effort would need to go back to the Senate for final approval and would extend the shutdown. It is also not likely to pass in the Senate, where most lawmakers have already left town. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Friday called the proposal “dead on arrival.” ... 

Keystone Kash e-mail hacked by Iran

It's good to know that the head of the FBI has everything under control lol. 

 Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish excerpts online

 

 

Reality has a funny way of jamming seemingly interminable rosy expectations

 Markets now see the Fed’s next move as a potential rate hike as inflation fears mount

... Traders in the futures market pushed the probability of a rate increase by the end of 2026 to 52% on Friday morning, the first time it has crossed the 50% threshold, according to the CME Group FedWatch tool. ... 

 

Senate Democrats get partial win, bill funding DHS passes without further funding for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection, which were massively funded last year by the Big Ugly Bill

Senate advances DHS funding bill, tees up House vote to end shutdown as TSA airport lines stretch 

... After weeks of Republicans fighting Democrats on their calls to remove funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement from any potential deal, the bill does exactly that. It would fund all of DHS except for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection, though it does not include the changes to ICE’s immigration enforcement practices that Democrats had demanded. 

... The shutdown began in February in the weeks after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of a federal immigration crackdown. Democrats demanded changes in ICE and DHS more broadly and refused to fund the department. ...

Global oil in storage was 8,210 million barrels to start 2026 with consumption at 105 mbpd, meaning a 78-day cushion, analyst says we're moving from absorption phase which began Feb 28 to fragility now

 Brent oil tops $110 again after Chinese ships are turned away from Strait of Hormuz

... “The oil market did not underreact to the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz; it absorbed it,” said Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, chief oil analyst at Rystad Energy.

“For nearly four weeks, markets have shown remarkable resilience … supported by a combination of pre-war surplus, crude-on-water, and policy barrels that provided a temporary buffer and kept prices contained. That phase is now ending,” she said.

According to Rystad, the global system has shifted from “buffered to fragile” after weeks of supply losses and inventory drawdowns, leaving little room to absorb further shocks.

Nearly 17.8 million barrels per day of oil and fuel flows through the Strait of Hormuz have been disrupted, the firm estimated, with close to 500 million barrels of total liquids lost so far.

 

TACO Trump threatens Iran to hurry up, then gives them more time

 Trump says Iranian negotiators ‘better get serious soon, before it is too late’ (0648 hours)

Trump extends pause on attacking Iran energy facilities to April 6 (1619 hours)

 

Trump's whopper of the week: The ten vessels Iran let through Hormuz on March 22-23 were a present to the United States lol

 Trump says Iran let 10 oil ships through Strait of Hormuz as ‘present’ to U.S.

... “That was three days ago, and I didn’t think much about it,” he said. ...                                     

No kidding.

This cockamamie idea sounds like it was thought up by Howard Lutnick.

The vessels went to China and India, and transited along the coast of Iran after passing between Qeshm and Larak and did not take the usual central passage, so they probably had to pay tolls. 

I wonder if they sent the bill to Mexico? 🤣

Sounds more like a gift to our competitors and enemies than to us. 

UKMTO reported ten transits two days ago, but not all were oil, and some were outbound and some inbound; this summary is probably what someone showed to Trump and they just assumed it was all oil outbound when it was not: 

 

Michael Moore's human molotov cocktail sets the world on fire

 Iran war is a ‘catastrophe,’ G7 ministers warn — but there’s little they can do to stop it

... “To make it crystal clear, this war is a catastrophe for the world’s economies,” Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister warned early Thursday.

“European partners and Germany highlighted from the beginning that we have not been consulted before. Nobody asked us before. It’s not our war,” he told reporters during a visit to Australia. ...

 

 Michael Moore says Trump is a ‘human Molotov cocktail’ supporters get to throw

  ... “His ideology is called Donald J. Trump. He believes in Donald J. Trump. If it’s good for him, then it’s a good thing. Not good for him, it’s a bad thing,” Moore said. ...

Holds up. 

Trump provides 77.3 million who voted for him an out, acknowledges he appointed Supreme Court justices who now sicken him lol

 

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

Trump says Justices Barrett, Gorsuch ‘sicken me’ after Supreme Court tariff ruling

President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized two of his Supreme Court appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — for voting with other justices in the bombshell 6-3 decision that ruled his signature reciprocal tariffs were illegal, saying they sickened him and are “bad for our country.”

“Two of the people that voted for that, I appointed,” Trump said at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner at Union Station in Washington, D.C., without naming the two justices. ...

The Iranian parliament Speaker says Trump is lying, uttering fake news, there have been no negotiations lol

Volume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump’s Iran post

Iran Media Denies Direct Talks After US Holds Off Energy Strikes...

 

  

Iranian parliament Speaker threatens to target U.S. financial institutions on Sunday, Trump chickens out by breakfast Monday

 Iran threatens U.S. Treasury buyers as Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum looms

Published Mon, Mar 23 2026 12:28 AM EDT 

... In a social media post on Sunday, Iran’s Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that U.S.-linked financial institutions holding American government bonds would be targeted alongside military bases.

“U.S. treasury bonds are soaked in Iranians’ blood. Purchase them, and you purchase a strike on your HQ and assets,” Ghalibaf said. “Alongside military bases, those financial entities that finance the U.S. military budget are legitimate targets,” he added in the post. ...

Two weeks in the news

 The economy has Strait of Hormuz deadline for Trump: Two weeks

... For now, the C-suite has its own view of the matter: it’s roughly two weeks and counting for the Trump administration and any allies that join the effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or corporate executives have to assume that the conflict will drag on until at least mid-year, with all of the negative consequences that come with that for the global economy. That was the conclusion on a call among members of the CNBC CFO Council earlier this week with energy and commodities market expert John Kilduff of Again Capital, who joined CFOs to share his view of the oil price outlook from inside the trader and investor community. ... If the military and government do not have good answers by April 1, “The crunch is coming.” ... by the end of the year, even in the U.S., “We’re going to have a major energy crisis on our hands. … I think the shortages would certainly have come to California by then,” Kilduff said. ... "if this goes on much more than two weeks or so, we’re going to reprice the barrels of oil here considerably higher,” he said. ...  

Because they have nothing better to do

 ICE agents might as well try security theatre after deportation theatre flopped at the box office earlier.  

 

ICE agents will be deployed to U.S. airports on Monday: Homan

... “We will be at the airports tomorrow, helping TSA move those lines along,” Homan said, adding that ICE will assist in areas like guarding exit doors to relieve TSA agents for screening travelers. “We’re simply there to help TSA do their jobs in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise.” ...

If stuff like guarding exit doors is an area that doesn't need the TSA's "specialized expertise", why are TSA agents doing that stuff in the first place, and why are we paying for it?