Trump on the Strait of Hormuz toll booth: We’re thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It’s a way of securing it - also securing it from lots of other people. It’s a beautiful thing.

This guy needs to be slowly keelhauled on a VLCC.

 

Life is like a box of chocolates

 

Where is this complete, immediate, and safe reopening of the Strait of Hormuz?

Is it in the room with us right now?

 

DEEP RED GA-14 which elected Marjorie Taylor Greene by 29 points in 2024 has elected another Republican endorsed by Trump to fill her seat by . . . 14 points

 Not as deep red as it used to be when your margin of victory is more than cut in half.

GOP's Clay Fuller Wins Special Election To Replace Taylor Greene 

And for what, Iran's hegemony over the Persian Gulf?

 Gen. Caine: More Than 50,000 U.S. Troops Flew 10,000 Missions Over Iran In 39 Days, Drank 950,000 Gallons Of Coffee

Trump's UN ambassador put this up about an hour before Trump decided to let Iran, out of all the countries in the world, charge a toll to get through an international waterway

20 millions barrels a day passing through is $20 million a day or $7.3 billion a year, going straight into the hands of Iran to build more missiles, drones, and nuclear weapons for to wipe Israel off the map and rule the Middle East.

Brilliant.

I'm sure all our new friends in the Persian Gulf who let us build bases to protect them are just thrilled. 

Trump belongs in a padded cell, not the Oval Office.

The world is spitting at us in contempt this morning. 

 

Today's drinking word is CINO

 Ceasefire in name only.

 

 

Two weeks Trump strikes again lol

 Trump suspends Iran attack for two weeks, subject to Hormuz Strait opening

 

Keir Starmer won't let America use UK bases to conduct actual war against Iran because actual war is a war crime now and he's a girlie man

 

Looks like losing 20% of the world's oil indefinitely is more likely than not

 

With seven of twelve periods complete in the current weak La Nina year and an average anomaly of -0.7985714 to date, the experts on X are predicting a Super El Nino based on a model

 🤣

Taki, who thinks it's 431 BC, takes time out from his debaucheries to scold The Donald that Iranians are going to experience terrible suffering, and Americans eventual defeat

Arrogance led to the Athenian demise, no doubt about it.  

But like the good Spartan that he is, he doesn't consider that it might be 490 BC instead, seeing how he and his European friends are too busy with feasting to come to the aid of our age's Athens at Marathon.

Here.

 

J. D. Vance heads to Hungary to support Orban ahead of high stakes election for the incomes of John O'Sullivan, Rod Dreher, and Gladden Pappin lol

 JD Vance heads to Hungary to support Viktor Orbán ahead of high-stakes election

OMG, a tale from the crypt lol, in which Charlie's Angel Kate Jackson pretends it was feminism and not jiggle television

 

Everybody is getting into the authoritarian business of giving themselves the power to decide something they don't like is terrorism so that they can suppress it

DeSantis signs Florida 'domestic terror' bill...

... Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure that gave him and other state officials the power to designate groups as "terrorist organizations" ‌and expel students who support them, with rights groups saying the law will chill free ‌speech.

The law empowers the state's chief of domestic security, governor and cabinet to designate any organization they determine engages in extremist ​acts as a "terrorist organization."

After such a designation, the group can be forcibly dissolved and face a freeze on state funding, according to the legislation. It also says that students shall be expelled from their institution if they "promoted a domestic terrorist organization or a foreign terrorist organization." ...

My favorite phrase from this essay: "To the extent that there’s an intellectual foundation for Trumpism . . ."

Very amusing.

There's a lot riding on the outcome of the Hungarian elections for certain "conservatives" next week. 

 Meet the MAGA Intellectual on Hungary’s Payroll: A political theorist who once prophesized a Queen Melania is Viktor Orbán’s envoy to the court of Trump

It's mostly about Gladden Pappin, but is useful for describing the connections between Hungary and other American figures like J. D. Vance, and also the Danube Institute bankrolling Rod Dreher (unmentioned), helmed by National Review veteran John O'Sullivan:

Another English-speaking member of this species is John O’Sullivan, a former speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher. O’Sullivan is the founder and president of the Danube Institute, which receives funding from Orbán’s government and stays relentlessly on message. Last year, the institute put on an event called Is Transgenderism Dying?” With nearly two weeks to go before the election on April 12, the institute hosted a summit featuring a video address by the deputy U.S. secretary of state, Christopher Landau, and in-person remarks from one of his advisers. Weeks earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had traveled to Budapest and told Orbán, “Your success is our success.” The Danube Institute event reinforced that message by giving U.S. diplomats pride of place in the program. “It’s very comforting to know that we have allies like you,” an institute employee told the Americans at the conference’s conclusion.  

Jonathan Turley was writing a pretty good column until he got to "We have allowed U.S. citizenship to become a mere commodity for the most affluent or unscrupulous among us"

He never mentions that with one hand Trump wants to end birthright citizenship in this court case and with the other sell citizenship to 37 million foreigners at $1 million each to nearly wipe out the national debt.

I say nearly because the national debt has exploded to $39 trillion since Trump first proposed this crackpot gimmick in February 2025. 

Trump's only ideas about America are about money and getting more of it.

Turley tries to square the circle but remains no friend of the blood and soil conservatives who framed the constitution for "our posterity".
 

Our Own Birthright: We May Need To Amend Constitution

Jonathan Turley, The Hill

 

... After our Revolution, one leading Frenchman known as John Hector St. John wrote a popular book that asked: “What then is the American, this new man?”

 

The answer to that question was obvious at our founding. We were the world’s first true enlightenment revolution — a republic founded on natural rights that came not from the government but God. We did not have a shared bond of land, culture, religion, or history. We were a people founded on a legacy of ideas; a people joined by common articles of faith in natural, unalienable rights. ... 

Adjusted for inflation since 1990, gasoline in this chart should be about $2.95, but it's $3.99 instead

 

Bond yields through March 2026 have ignored Fed interest rate cuts which commenced in September 2024

 

Trump sets new records for low approval and high disapproval to start April

 

Judas' silver is up 2% year to date, gold is up 8%

 Silver:  $73.77 USD +$1.49 USD +2.06% YTD

Gold:  $4,693.90 USD +$359.60 USD +8.3% YTD  

What a relief

 

Ronald Reagan's goal of a 600-ship U.S. Navy made it to 594 in 1987, but in 2026 we can barely deploy 300 because of Bill Clinton, but Trumpty Dumpty never mentions that

 

 After the end of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, Bill Clinton gutted the Navy.

We went from 541 ships in 1992 to 336 by 1999.

And now we can't stop the Houthis in the Red Sea, nor Iran in the Persian Gulf. 

Iran continues its tight grip on Strait of Hormuz outbound traffic through this morning

 

You can start with "us must take"

 

Us Democrats Must Take Ownership for Our Failures

Matt Mahan, Newsweek

He who would create a new Persian Gulf canal with thermonuclear weapons two weeks ago now warns of war solutions that sound good but are guaranteed to fail lol

 

Both foreign born population and foreign born employment ticked up again in March 2026

 

Employment with government at all levels remains very high in March 2026 at 23.3 million

 

Federal employment in March 2026 is at levels last seen in 1966

 

38.11% eating but not working in March 2026

 

Practice makes perfect

 

Man nailed to cross for 37th time in Good Friday 'crucifixion' -- but he declines whipping...

48.66% worked full time in March 2026

 When does the Golden Age start?

 

 

So Lori Chavez-Deremer at the Department of Labor had a good long lie-in past NOON today and didn't get the initial claims numbers to FRED until 4:16PM EDT

 These numbers are routinely updated not long after the 8:30am press release in previous administrations.

 

 

Drudge is running propaganda for the Chicom bond market now

 

Chinese govt bonds emerge as lone haven...

 

https://en.people.cn/n3/2026/0327/c90000-20440521.html

... "By allocating to RMB bonds, foreign investors can reduce portfolio volatility and improve risk-adjusted returns." ... "In the face of frequent geopolitical risks, the safe-haven role of RMB bonds has emerged," Yu said, adding that as the RMB internationalization progresses, demand for RMB assets as reserves is growing, and this is expected to support the growth of RMB bonds holdings by central banks and sovereign wealth funds.                                                                                        

LOL, what a crock.

Foreign investors own less than $1 trillion of Chinese debt, compared with over $9 trillion of U.S. debt.

... [U.S.] Treasuries are relied upon by global central banks as the pre-eminent reserve asset, since the $30tn market for the securities is the biggest and deepest in the world. ...

More. 

 

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. ...

 

Some foreign holders of U.S. Treasury securities are selling them to buy oil, which is denominated in DOLLARS, not in yuan

 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

DXY: 99.893 

Foreign central banks sell US Treasuries in wake of Iran war

 

Polls: Support for Military Operation Drops Below 40% in RCP Average

 

"The 14th Amendment was never that great"

 

War for Peace!

 

Trump Touts the Successes of His War for Peace

Roger Kimball, Spectator World

She's so . . . u n u s u a l

 Sotomayor: Do You Want to 'Unnaturalize People?'

... Sauer replied, “No, we believe the court should do what it did in Sessions v. Morales-Santana, where there was a ruling that would have deprived people who are already citizens of citizenship, and the court said this applies prospectively only. We think that’s the appropriate course here. ..."

 

This is so great

 

Drudge version:

RUBIO MAY NEED TO SURRENDER PASSPORT; Neither parent was citizen at time of his birth...

 

Actual version:

 

Trump’s Own Cabinet Would Have Been Harmed by Birthright Citizenship Move

... Rubio, who was born to Cuban parents who were not American citizens at the time of his birth ...

 

 

The Newsweek story simply omits the crux interpretum involved in "and subject to" in the 14th Amendment.

Rubio's parents were subject to the jurisdiction of Cuba, and therefore so was he, making none of them citizens.

Same was true of Native Americans, none of whom were made citizens by the 14th Amendment. They were subject to The Nations, which the federal government recognized by treaties as nations within the American nation. Native Americans received citizenship by law passed in 1924.  

14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens ...                                               

It is high time that "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" be treated seriously and not superfluously.  

 

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?

Peter Morici doesn't get it that Tehran already threatens the global order, without nuclear weapons, because it already decides who may safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz

 

 ... With nuclear weapons in hand, Iran could threaten the global order with impunity. ... Tehran would recover, build atomic weapons, decide who may pass safely through the Strait of Hormuz, and slowly strangle the global economy by demanding tribute for access to precious Gulf oil and LNG.

Very odd essay.

Here. 

Some Golden Age: The 10-year trend for percent change for ADP private payrolls is down

 

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

The U.S. has military bases in all Persian Gulf countries except Iran, from which Trump has launched attacks on Iran which will have the effect of bankrupting those countries

 There is something deeply insane about all this.

Only Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pipelines which can by-pass the Strait of Hormuz and replace a part of the lost export capacity. Production will have to be curtailed because there's nowhere to go with it. And everyone in the world will be poorer for it.

 

 

Massive oil shortages incoming, tanker traffic down 90% in March through the Strait of Hormuz

 

In other words, this would mean Trump is going to cut and run from the Persian Gulf just like he cut and ran from the Red Sea on May 6, 2025

 Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz: Administration officials assess that forcing the waterway back open would mean extending the military mission

WASHINGTON—President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.

In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said. ...

 

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. 

J. D. Vance: Republicans have to break the Senate filibuster and destroy the country in order to save it

Remember when W said to CNN's Candy Crowley in December 2008 that he had abandoned free market principles in order to save the free market system?

We got Obama, a foreclosure crisis for six million, banks failed by the hundreds, and jobs didn't recover for six years and five months.

Why is it always the Republicans with these paraprosdokians?  

 

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. 

Strategic victory for Iran (and China): Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz is the primary result of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran so far

... So far in March, the first full month of war, barely six vessels per day on average have traversed the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the world, in either direction. That compares with about 135 a day in normal times, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

Over that time, 80% of the small number of oil tankers exiting the strait have been Iranian — or belong to countries with which it is on cordial terms, the figures show. ...

Out of the 110 individual ships that left the gulf this month, more than 36% were sanctioned Iranian ships or part of the so-called dark fleet serving Tehran, data compiled by Bloomberg show. For oil tankers, 21 out of 35 that have exited had direct Iranian ties — but most of the remainder went to nations with whom Tehran has a friendly relationship. 

Until this war, one long-held assumption around Hormuz was that Iran would never attempt to close the strait, for fear of risking its own exports, a vital economic lifeline. In fact, ship-tracking data suggest that Tehran’s oil has continued to flow — almost entirely to China — even as other ships are stranded and producers in the region have been left scrambling for alternatives or forced to stop producing as storage fills up.

Iran exported roughly 1.8 million barrels a day this month, a nearly 8% increase from its average over 2025, according to figures from data intelligence firm Kpler as of March 26. That likely facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars of oil revenue for Tehran, a Bloomberg News analysis shows. ...

More. 

Another impediment to human life in orbit, and on the moon or Mars

 

Space conditions hamper sperm's ability to navigate toward egg...

 

 ... Sperm in microgravity still move, they just cannot find their way. The function that appears to be disrupted is navigation, the ability to orient and move with purpose toward a destination. ... 

If the world had any brains it would skip the Semite wars in the Middle East over oil and switch back to coal while transitioning to nuclear and renewables

Known coal reserves are all over the place and can power the world three times longer than known oil reserves at current consumption rates.

 

South Korea, Japan, China, and India can more easily switch right now to coal from the LNG lost due to the Iran war, Taiwan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the Philippines not so much.

 

This Is What Happens When the Gas Runs Out...

  

... India is another major importer of Middle Eastern L.N.G. that is likely to pivot significantly to coal, according to Wood Mackenzie. It has vast domestic reserves, and since the outbreak of the war, New Delhi has issued directives to maximize coal-fired output, ordering coal plants to operate at full capacity for three months starting in April. 

 

China likewise possesses huge domestic coal reserves, which, alongside gas piped in from Russia and a world-leading wind and solar fleet tied to the world’s largest energy storage network, have shielded the country from the worst of the L.N.G. supply shocks. ...