Saturday, March 28, 2026
The Houthis have joined Iran by restarting hostilities against Israel
Trump couldn't finish the Houthis off last year, and now they come back to bite.
Oil tankers filling at Saudi Arabia's Yanbu port in the Red Sea because it was too dangerous in the Persian Gulf may soon have nowhere to fill.
All because Donald Trump has been mistaken twice in the Middle East.
The energy crisis will soon be a global energy catastrophe, leading to an inflation catastrophe, leading to an economic catastrophe. And maybe a world war.
DHS will remain shutdown, GOP-controlled U.S. House passes 60-day continuing resolution to fund DHS, ignoring the plan passed by the GOP-controlled Senate earlier
The Senate returns in 2 weeks to take up the matter.
Kristi Noem did a really fantastic job running DHS, didn't she?
Friday, March 27, 2026
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.
Thursday, March 26, 2026
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:
Initial Claims updated one eternity later
The Trump administration thinks so little of its one truly bright spot that it makes us wait to enjoy it.
Raw claims average below 195k in March to date, only the third month averaging below 200k in his second term to date.
You'd think that they'd be out there trumpeting these continued historically low numbers, but it is evident that they don't really care.
It's political malpractice.
Trump's dysfunctional government can't even get the weekly Initial Claims for Unemployment chart at FRED updated on time
This happens repeatedly under Trump and his loser appointees.
We're still waiting for today's update even though the news release came out as usual at 0830 hours.
After telling you that war is peace, get ready for the Ministry of Truth to say that the Save America Act about voter ID is a fiscal issue permitting passage under reconciliation
In the Senate, Thune resurrects idea of reconciliation
... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted, “It’s hard to imagine how the SAVE America Act could be passed through reconciliation. And by ‘hard’ I mean ‘essentially impossible.’”
Lee, a member of the Budget Committee, has led the push for the chamber to debate SAVE and even pursue a so-called talking filibuster to pass the bill via a simple majority. ...
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said that “I don’t see any way that any part of the SAVE America Act [with] any teeth gets included in a reconciliation package.”
“On top of that, I think it’s very difficult to pass a reconciliation package. We don’t have big tax cuts coming. That’s really what got the last one done,” Scott said. “I think it’s going to be very difficult to get you know 50 of us to agree on something.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who opposed last year’s reconciliation measure, said, “It would seem on its face, because there’s so much policy involved, that it would be difficult to do.”
“It’s kind of interesting to see if they’re just going to be pushing maybe some of the funding that could fit within reconciliation. But I don’t know how the policy fits in there.”
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has been part of hashing out the agreement between Democrats and the White House to reopen DHS, also declined to support reconciliation, saying “I don’t think that’s a good approach.” ...
The chamber’s conservative House Freedom Caucus called the idea “gaslighting” from Senate Republican leadership. ...
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