Well, Trump did promise to triple the mine sweepers in the Strait of Hormuz lol

 

SPX rallied 10% after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but ended the year down 19%

SPX is up almost 12% since March 30th.

 Investors are misreading news about the Iran war, analysts say as markets whipsaw

... The resumption of uninterrupted energy flows is what underpins any sustained stock market recovery, according to investment manager Orbis.

“It’s pretty clear to us that equity markets are viewing things with a ‘glass half full’ view,” Patrick O’Donnell, chief investment strategist at Orbis, told CNBC’s Europe Early Edition on Monday.

“What we’re focused on is whether the Strait of Hormuz is actually going to reopen again.”

He added that the ramifications of the conflict in the Middle East will have “quite a long-lasting effect” for the global economy and markets. ...

 

Dumbass Trump, who never paid the slightest attention to what's been happening in and to Ukraine, is surprised how easily Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz with drones

 

The Wall Street Journal, here:

... The strait has been a particular source of frustration. Before the U.S. went to war, Trump told his team that Iran’s government would likely capitulate before closing the strait, and that even if Tehran tried, the U.S. military could handle it, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Some of the president’s advisers were caught off guard that tanker traffic would grind to a halt so quickly after the bombing began, according to a person in contact with the White House. 

Trump has since marveled at the ease with which the strait was closed. A guy with a drone can shut it down, Trump has said to people, expressing belated irritation that the key waterway was so vulnerable. He has publicly oscillated between demanding support from allies to help open it and insisting that the U.S. doesn’t need or want military assistance. ... 

White House concerns about security threats have been heightened, aides said.

In recent weeks, for example, Trump and his team have noticed an increase in security. On a cloudless night in April at Mar-a-Lago, every umbrella was up on the patio in an unusual arrangement, guests said. Club members were told that there was an effort to limit drone visibility, a Mar-a-Lago member said. 

Rubio told others about standing outside his home at the military compound where he lives and watching a suspicious drone, administration officials said. Secret Service protection teams have expanded to carry weapons White House officials had never seen before. ...

 

Friday night fright night for Ukraine as Trump keeps Russian oil unsanctioned for a second consecutive month

 Trump is an asshole.

 

 Update from CNBC Saturday:

U.S. renews Russian oil waiver after pressure from countries dealing with Iran war price shocks 

... “As negotiations (with Iran) accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure oil is available to those who need it,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said. Just two days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would not be renewing the waiver for Russian oil and another for Iranian oil, which is set to expire on Sunday. ...

U.S. lawmakers from both political parties had slammed the administration over the sanctions waivers, saying they stood to help the economy of Iran while it was at war with the U.S. and of Russia as it was at war with Ukraine. ... 

America is no longer a world superpower because it doesn't have a Navy capable of maintaining freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, let alone in the West Philippine Sea or the Taiwan Strait

But we can still put people in a tin can and send them around the moon like we did already in 1968.

We also don't have a military capable of stopping Russian aggression in Europe, because we're too tired after Iraq and Afghanistan.

Put up or shut up, Ben. 

This Is What a World Superpower Looks Like

Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire

Is NATO allowed to use U.S. bases within the United States, say, to help Ukraine against Russia?

 Rubio: Why Are We In NATO When They Won't Allow U.S. To Use Their Bases?

Cry me a river about Iran's water

 The destruction in the early hours of June 6 [2023] of Ukraine’s massive Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River is a dangerous escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia. It risks massive human and ecological consequences to communities downstream being hit by vast floodwaters, and also threatens a potentially catastrophic nuclear accident. World leaders are also calling it a war crime. ...

Kakhovka Dam, one of the largest in Europe, was built in the late 1950s to provide hydroelectric power, irrigation water, and improved navigation on the Dnieper River which flows from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine before emptying into the Black Sea. When full—and it was full when it was destroyed—the reservoir contains 18 cubic kilometers (nearly 5 trillion gallons) of water. That’s around four times the volume of California’s largest reservoir, the Shasta reservoir, and about half the volume of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. The reservoir behind the dam also supplies critical cooling water to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and feeds water into the North Crimea Canal, delivering nearly 80% of Crimea’s water. ...

Water and water systems have been the targets of attacks from the beginning of this war. Researchers have documented more than 50 such attacks on dams, water supply systems, city water treatment plants, pipelines, and other facilities. At the beginning of the war, the Russians destroyed a small dam blocking water flows to Crimea. And civilian water treatment and delivery systems have been widely attacked by the Russians, cutting water supplies and sanitation services for hundreds of thousands of people. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians cut levees to flood areas north of Kyiv to halt the initial Russian armored assault on the capital. But until now, there had been nothing as massive or devastating as this event. 

Attacks on dams are war crimes, as explicitly noted in Article 56 of Protocol I and Article 15 of Protocol II of the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. These international laws prohibit attacks on infrastructure “containing dangerous forces” including explicitly “dams” and “dykes” if such attacks “may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.” Despite these prohibitions, conflicts over water and attacks on water systems are on the rise, with a dramatic increase in the past two decades.

There is precedent for Russian destruction of dams on the Dnieper River. In August 1941, during World War II, the retreating Soviet Army destroyed another dam on the Dnieper at Zaporizhzhia, the Dnieper Dam, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the advancing Nazis. At the time it was the largest dam in the world. The subsequent flooding reportedly killed tens of thousands of people downstream. ...

More.

 

 Trump threatens Iran's water supply in astonishing 'war crime' escalation as defiant Tehran tears up nuclear treaty

 

Laying waste to Iran would solve a number of problems. 

 

One man ruins the world, except for Russia

 

This is completely unpatriotic because it helps China, just like Mad King Ludwig's Ukraine policy is completely unpatriotic because it helps Russia

 Michael Savage used to warn us about the enemy within. Unfortunately America elected him.

80-90% of Iranian oil is bought by China, the proceeds from which Iran uses to buy raw materials from China to make ballistic missiles.

Trump is insane. 

U.S. is allowing Iranian oil tankers through Strait of Hormuz: Bessent

Trump doesn't murder and injure civilians only in the Caribbean or Minneapolis, civilian deaths and injuries are up 31% in Ukraine, too, since he became president

 

Paper tiger Trump in the news

 

 

Trump says India won’t buy Russian oil. Shadow fleet vessels are still unloading crude at its ports

 

Vladimir Putin violates Trump’s temporary winter truce, killing 5 Ukrainians in overnight airstrikes 

 

 

 

 

A more cruel bunch has never occupied the White House

 

Update:

Kyiv only getting 4-6 hours of electricity day after relentless Russian strikes...
 

Trump said we're not going to have Russia as a neighbor lol

"Right now, we are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not because if we don't do it Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour. Okay? I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way."

Here. 

Who's going to tell him?

I hope this doesn't mean Alaska is . . . for sale. 

 

 

Yeah, Trump did a really great job kicking out of Venezuela all that foreign influence in our hemisphere from China, Russia, and Iran

 

American Con Mag, voting for the enemy since 2008

 

The Lie of the Year 2025 Award goes to Donald Trump: Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed

 ‘A Complete Embarrassment’: Critics Skewer Trump For Declaring ‘Russia Wants To See Ukraine Succeed’

 Zelensky smirks as Trump says ‘Russia wants Ukraine to succeed’

 

 

Kremlin says peace proposals not improved by Europe, Ukraine changes to proposals Trump wrote to please Kremlin

 

Kremlin says peace prospects not improved by Europe, Ukraine changes to U.S. proposals

The United States and Russia are already obligated to respect Ukraine's sovereignty under the Budapest Memorandum and they're not doing it, so executing another piece of paper without NATO membership will be meaningless

The US under Trump is demanding pieces of Ukraine's economy, and Russia has already taken pieces of its land.

This whole business is a dirty joke, rewarding Russia for its aggression and turning a blind eye to its myriad war crimes.

 

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy ditches ambition to join NATO ahead of peace talks

 

... “From the very beginning, Ukraine’s desire was to join NATO, these are real security guarantees. Some partners from the US and Europe did not support this direction,” he said in answer to questions from reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

“Thus, today, bilateral security guarantees between Ukraine and the US, Article 5-like guarantees for us from the US, and security guarantees from European colleagues, as well as other countries — Canada, Japan — are an opportunity to prevent another Russian invasion,” Zelenskyy said.

“And it is already a compromise from our part,” he said, adding that the security guarantees should be legally binding. ...

Real Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a Russia-loving loser like Trump

 

Vladimir Putin found that the Trump, Kushner, Witkoff appeasement offer was one he could indeed refuse

 

Putin threatens Europe with war if it wants one, as Ukraine peace talks falter

 

... The talks in Moscow came after Putin launched a tirade against Europe, saying that its counter peace proposals were “absolutely unacceptable” for Russia, and that the region’s leadership had “no peace agenda.”

“We’re not going to war with Europe; I’ve said that a hundred times. But if Europe suddenly wants to fight us and starts, we’re ready right now,” Putin told journalists ahead of his meeting with Witkoff and Kushner.

European officials have expressed consternation in recent weeks that they, and Ukraine, were excluded from initial talks between the U.S. and Russia that led to an original draft peace plan seen to heavily favor Russia. ...