Volume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump’s Iran post
Monday, March 23, 2026
Leon Panetta: Trump has no choice but to go big or go home
... He advises Trump to abandon his magical thinking and “face the fact” that he must use the military to open the strait, neutralise Iranian defences along the coast and deploy ships to escort oil tankers through.
“There’s no question there’s going to be lives lost and it’s clearly going to expand the war but I don’t see the alternative. He’s got to do it. He’s talked a great deal about the strength of the United States. This is a test of whether the United States can be able to deal with that situation which otherwise is not only going to prolong the war but create a lot of economic damage to the United States with those soaring fuel prices and cause what some have said is a potential worldwide recession.”
Panetta added frankly: “There’s not much choice. You’ve got to do what you have to do and, if you can open the strait, it might give you a better chance to then have a basis on which you can negotiate hopefully some kind of ceasefire. That’s the only way that he can go at this point; otherwise he will clearly have failed to find a solution.” ...
More.
He's right.
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. ...
Sunday, March 22, 2026
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?
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Friday, March 20, 2026
Trump approval hit a record low 41.8% yesterday in the Real Clear Politics average
Disapproval with Trump at 55.9% retests the high from Feb 23.
GOP liars portray passing routine legislation under reconcilation rules as a standard part of the process when the gimmick is restricted to budgets and wasn't used for the first time until 1980
Now they want to make everything fall under reconciliation in order to make an end run around the filibuster.
The Byrd Rule codified in 1990 makes legislation extraneous to the budget process, like the Save Act, ineligible for the process.
Mad King Ludwig unendorsed Jeff Hurd CO-3 on Feb 21 as a RINO, but one month later il Donaldo Trumpo gives him his total endorsement
Trump is clearly 25th Amendment material and belongs nowhere near The Football. Unfortunately his cabinet happily wears the Florsheims he gave them.
Loon meets loon
Dalai Lama:
So, I might take rebirth as an insect, or an animal—whatever would be of most value to the largest number of sentient beings.
Trump creates an emergency by attacking Iran, turns right around and declares an emergency to by-pass Congress and sell weapons to Persian Gulf states even though we need another $200 billion from Congress for weapons
Trump invokes emergency powers with $23 billion in Gulf arms sales as Iran war wages on: WSJ report
... For some of the deals, the American government invoked the emergency clause of U.S. arms control law, a mechanism that allows the executive branch to proceed without the standard 30-day congressional review period, according to the report.
The Trump administration learned nothing from its fight to a draw with the Houthis last year
... Iran is still believed to have a vast stockpile of mines, cruise missiles on trucks and hundreds of undamaged boats in hidden facilities with deeply dug tunnels along the coast and on islands, said Farzin Nadimi, an expert on Iranian defenses at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“I think it will take weeks to reach a point where there can be safe operations in the strait,” he said. “Even then, a lot of the Iranian assets will survive.” ...
Houthi militants in Yemen, who are aligned with Iran, waged a two-month campaign last year with missiles, drones and unmanned boats against international shipping that parallels Iran’s closure of the strait. The U.S. struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen, but never succeeded in halting Houthi attacks fully until the two sides declared a truce in May. ...
More.
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