"We were warned ... we were warned ... we were warned," I keep muttering to myself, every time I see the news or read analysis of the latest round of incoming from a regime that seems hell-bent on doing exactly the opposite of everything that qualifies as common sense or intelligent. Mommy, make it stop.
So, I'm actually starting to think there's *some* method to the madness. Without getting into too many details about where I work, let's just say Doug Burghum has a plan to start sitting down with several congressional reps with public lands in their districts in the coming weeks. His intent is to show them exactly where the oil and gas on those public lands are. Why do this now? Well, oil had been at $60-65/barrel which didn't give domestic oil companies a lot of financial incentive to comply with the "drill baby drill" goal of the admin. Why drill oil out of the ground at higher rates for $65/barrel when you could keep it in the ground until it goes higher and you make more profit on the back end? Well, if the admin starts a war that drives up the cost of the barrel, now those companies *do* have financial incentives to start drilling oil out of the ground at higher rates, and when paired with the admin letting them do so on federal lands in unprecedented fashion, they can now claim record domestic oil production on the backend when the oil companies do start extracting at higher rates.
Increasing domestic oil production might not have been the *primary* motivation for starting the war in Iran, but it's certainly one of the side benefits of it in the eyes of this admin. And when you look at how much of a motivation oil acquisition was for the Venezuela operation I can't exactly rule it out as a major motivation for the Iran "excursion."
He's too dumb to think about this, but the guys in the cabinet who work him for their own purposes are not. If Rubio can convince Trump to take out Maduro and Bibi can convince him to go after Iran do you think the oil bubbas can't join in on that party too?
I think this is a very astute comment. When you look at the players, rampant corruption is their hallmark. When it comes to Trump, always follow the money.
I take issue with the second part of this -- Trump didn’t set out to make this happen, of course. But what he’s done to oil by accident...
It's no accident when one of the most likely outcomes of his unnecessary war on Iran was to roil oil markets and spike oil and gas prices.
Everyone who has ever studied a potential war with Iran would highlight Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz and the negative impacts on global oil production, transportion, and prices.
I completely understand your feelings, but I'd just say this:
Trump is the maximalist living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger.
People truly, TRULY still do not understand how actively stupid he is. His apathy to learning is a narcissistic defense. He won't study because he knows he CAN'T learn.
One small correction: People truly, TRULY still do not understand how actively stupid MAGA is. Their apathy to learning is a narcissistic defense. They won’t study because they know they CAN’t learn.
Your final statement applies to all of MAGA - every last one of them.
He's not apathetic towards learning. He's actively opposed to it. He doesn't want anyone else to learn either, because they would then know more than he does. Just as I typed that, I remembered he had once said something about keeping smart people around him, and that even when he did so in his first term, he never listened to them. He just fired them for disagreeing with his stupid ideas.
Yes, fair and better. And that's the narcissistic defense kicking in.
It's a pattern he's had throughout his career - every enterprise except for real estate (built upon his father's work and comparatively hard to tank in NYC) and THE APPRENTICE (Mark Burnett's baby) and "Trump" branding have failed.
Airlines, sports, casinos (!!!), hotels. All bust and in every case COULD have been turned around by people with expertise around him, had he listened.
Ultimately, we are living through the first full "Trump" TM/branded Presidency and we, as a country, are quickly heading towards the net result of the other enterprises. God help us all.
He won’t study because he thinks he already knows all he needs to know, via his “very good brain”, and by osmosis from his MIT uncle. “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, to me, a deep experience.”-DJT, 2004, in his book “Think Like a Billionaire”. He trusts his gut, tries to avoid overthinking, and finds long meetings and reports a “waste of time”. So you just do stuff and “see what happens”.
What it has really exposed is the lack of any “process” in the decision making and the lack of expertise of the cabinet members (Wright, Bessent, Duffy and Wiles). The military obviously understands the Hormuz issue, but the relevant cabinet members weren’t in contact with their military counterparts to make any plans. In fact the military was not requested to make a plan until after the bombs started falling. And the flat-footedness from the listed cabinet members shows their lack of expertise (Bessent didn’t know who to call to reach the London marine insurance groups!!). Sean Duffy has no basic knowledge of how the commercial marine business works? Chris Wright doesn’t know how the world oil markets work? And none of them know how to contact folks in their own departments to find that expertise (maybe DOGE fired them all). And Suzie Wiles doesn’t have enough sense that having just Trump, Jared and Witkoff solely involved is a formula for failure?
We all knew his cabinet was deeply, deeply unqualified. You can blame the Republican ass kissers for confirming this confederacy of dunces. None of them have any expertise in the fields they were chosen to lead and Republican Senators KNEW IT. Hang this around their necks, Dems.
It boggles the mind that our vaunted military leadership and collection of stable geniuses in the current regime did not see the Hormuz crisis coming. It's not like, going back to at least the first Gulf War in 1990/91, we haven't heard about the likely impact there, from military operations in the region, every time we watched cable news and analysis, over all those years. You'd think somebody in their orbit maybe, possibly, perhaps saw that too and managed to connect the dots. Apparently not. So, then, what were they paying attention to instead?
DM, of course the military leadership, sans Hegseth, saw the Hormuz crisis coming. Trump, stable genius that he is, waved it away, first floating the idea to have "my navy" escort them. Then it was, "We'll pay for the insurance!". Then it was, "We'll pay the insurance' insurance!" Etc. Etc.
Trump is doing what he has always done, blustering about how the bad things he's caused are actually good while looking for his own private exit ramp. His "smart" bankruptcies stuck other people with the costs of his failures as he ensured his money was safe.
There is one winner in all this. Russia and it s oil. He kills two birds with one stone. ( Intelligence to Iran and JT s easing economics on Russian oil).
Dang it, if only there were some sort of energy source that no country controlled access to. Something that didn't need to be shipped. If we had discovered such a thing decades ago we could have been pouring resources into it so we wouldn't have to be worried about being economically dependent on a limited commodity with vulnerable distribution points. Oh well, one thing's for sure. We're certainly learning our lesson. If we ever do discover such energy sources we will definitely make them a priority going forward....
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”
Perhaps the single stoopidest thing to come out of the mouth of the single stoopidest person ever to reside in the White House. Given the daily barrage of competition coming from him each and every day, like the vast amount of water constantly cascading over Niagara Falls, that truly is saying something. It's also the last thing we want to see him accomplish, lacking the ability to somehow wind the clock back and not start this stoopid war he put us into with no clear set of objectives and no exit strategy other than to stoopidly say "it's over when I say it's over," consequences be damned.
If by "we" he means "I," then yes, apparently he is correct. The hubris is the inevitable outcome of a perfect storm of a lifelong entitled, coddled, unrestrained person thinking that everything he does is right, that only his own interests and those of his enabling personal allies matter, and that a wide swath of Americans who somehow blundered into the trap of believing that a slick-talking narcissistic fool and simpleton living in vast wealth and grifting off of them at every opportunity both understands and cares about their needs and daily realities, and would put theirs ahead of his own every day. Unconscionable. And very, very stoopid.
Have I said lately how very, very, very, very much I can't wait to vote in November? If we are allowed to do so.
Agree but if we are lucky Vance might be ready to 25th the President and take his place (and by lucky I don't I don't mean having Vance as Prez, I mean he being motivated to swear in the new Senators)
Either stoopid OR very, very smart (as only the most stable geenyusses can be). Millions and millions of his ardent fans embrace the wisdom (synonym: BS) he imparts. Same thing as with the lower taxes on the wealthiest, DOGE, the tariffs, the mass deportations, the two dolls for Christmas, and on and on and on. Can't you see how much better off the average American is because of all these awesome policies promulgated (okay, lied about) by this great businessman?? So smart to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear and make people believe in it!!
Well, they are at least stoopid enough to buy into the geenyus' notion that whatever he says or does, without exception, is okay as long as there is no Democrat in charge of anything, because ... well ... ... ... just because. High prices > Democrat. Putin > Democrat. Murdering little girls in an impulsive war > Democrat. All day, every day. Tired yet of so much winning? No, of so much stoopid.
It’s simple economics. When the oil companies make more money, they will invest their profits in new, innovative industries that will provide high paying jobs for American born workers the same way that tax cuts have been creating jobs since 1980. This might even be better than tariffs.
Simple economics is what people see when they do their family budgets and realize that they are having more and more trouble paying basic bills and making ends meet. How many people will be better off from oil companies raking it in compared to those who take a hit for having less disposable income available for everyday expenses?
As for tax cuts, please show us that more jobs necessarily equates to better jobs, in both salary and benefits, value-adjusted over time. I've not been seeing it as the wealth gap grows ever greater.
For such a self-professed "Alpha", the Sec of War is a real f'n crybaby. "Waaahh! Bad pictures of me!" "Waaahh! Say nicer things about the job I'm doing!" JFC. Grow a pair, guy.
Couldn't agree with you more. Wasn't it the "men" on the right who referred to others outside of "their circle" as snowflakes???? FFS! Who is the snowflake? trump, kegsbreath, patel, bondi, blanche, all of em! Poor widdle babies....Jesus.
When Trump starts arguing about raking in money from high oil prices, the decapitated ghost of Marie Antoinette starts cackling hysterically as she remembers her own unfortunate comments about cake. Only someone as detached from reality of every day life and its costs as DJT would ever make comments about basic commodities gouging consumers as a net benefit. Political history is littered with the graves of political leaders who made that mistake and are no longer around to tell their tales. Trump may think the sun won’t burn, but it’s still the sun and still burns the reckless and Trump 2.0 has thrown all caution, if he ever had any, to the political wind.
Well, from his point of view, why the hell not? He has never paid a price for anything in his life, and he managed to win the presidency not once but twice. So of course he's throwing whatever caution he has to the wind because he doesn't care about the consequences to the country. It doesn't even register to him that being POTUS means being a fiduciary. All there is, and all that's ever been, is Trump.
And now, the bill for our collective amorality, unseriousness, and stupidity is coming due in the form of bloodshed and economic collapse.
So wait, Sec Pete: If the administration did NOT underestimate the war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz, then they're cool with the flaming ships and the cowering crews and the frightened insurance providers and expensive oil? Oh, right. Expensive oil trumps all and quickly lines the pockets of the right kind of Americans - the rich ones.
Don’t tell Pete or DJT, but the commercial maritime industry is not only concerned about the cargo and the vessel, but they also don’t want to risk the lives of their crews.
Bill: "To make this obvious point isn’t to be woke or even antiwar. It’s to be adult and civilized. And however much Trump has degraded our civic culture, I think it’s a point with which most Americans would agree."
"Most Americans" brought us to this moment, and I will believe they rediscovered their virtue and decency when I see it.
At the very end of Chris Hayes's show on MSNOW, Chris asked former Montana Senator John Tester what he thought about Trump's new messaging that higher oil prices are going to make America rich. The Senator just giggled.
I'm surprised Tester didn't cry as he well knows agriculture doesn't run on crude oil. It runs on diesel gas and fertilizers, both refined oil products. A lot of fertilizer comes from the Middle East. This is another knife in the back of farmers and ranchers. Food is going to go up some more.
I don't know how many more times the orange idiot has to say he hates everyone before people will believe him.
Bypassing Congress to start an unasked for and illegal war with obviously no strategy. Our military dying - for what? Gas prices affect everything. Prices go up, which were higher because of his tariffs. Boasting that yay! we're making money - not you, you peasants! Let's not forget the concentration camps, the murders of 4 US citizens, mass deportation to foreign prisons. Human rights, what are they? This inhuman hates everything and everyone he's not.
he even hates his own fan club in the WH. Making his toadies wear ill-fitting shoes (I'm sorry Joe Perticone, those Florsheims are fugly AF). He hates them and will humiliate them. And they deserve it.
That really is the only appropriate response. You cannot give a serious answer to what was a very unserious response from Piggy trying to save his political bacon.
SOW Pete Hegseth: "The sooner David Ellison takes over that network[CNN], the better.” Well, in case anyone was still magically thinking that there wouldn't be any attempt to Foxify CNN, forget it.
Our version of Big Brother, Trump, and the Ministry of Truth, fabulists and defamers like Fox and Newsmax have arrived thru the power of the Murdochs and now the broligarchs. Fortunately, we still have alternatives like the Bulwark and other freelancers on Substack.
Rising prices will not impact 47's hold on his base. They are there primarily for cultural reasons, not economic. He can blame the prices on foreign interests, illegal immigrants, and Dem-supporting elitists, and the base will believe him.
Rising prices will hurt him with independents and Dem-leaners who skipped the last election. The former voted for him either as a protest against Covid-driven inflation/interest, the Apprentice myth of his biz acumen, or both.
Excursion. Hmm. Silly at first, of course, and repugnant, but it does give the war a kind of Love Boat vibe. Let's all meet tonight at the Straits of Hormuz for margaritas and munchies.
I’ve never been more completely sure that this administration has absolutely NO IDEA what it is doing in any area of governance than I have this week.
Watching this Iran DEBACLE (there’s another word for Donald to look up) is not only embarrassing, it’s genuinely terrifying.
I hate it here.
"We were warned ... we were warned ... we were warned," I keep muttering to myself, every time I see the news or read analysis of the latest round of incoming from a regime that seems hell-bent on doing exactly the opposite of everything that qualifies as common sense or intelligent. Mommy, make it stop.
Yet MAGA will lap everything up.
Narcissists are like that. It's as if they accept that they are a failure, so they opt to fail spectacularly.
Exactly! "Stop this timeline, we want to get off!"
Yep, especially since 2026 is the year WW3 starts in Star Trek canon.
WW3 starting because of rivalries between genetically engineered super humans is so much cooler than what's actually happening. 😀
Gene Roddenberry could never have imagined what's happening now. Well, maybe, but no one would have believed it. The Wrath of Khan makes more sense.
Except Trump has neither the intellectual nor physical strength of Khan. Just the hubris.
"Beam me up Scotty"...... Please
I'd so much prefer if Dorothy Fontana was writing reality.
Maybe what they meant was artificially altered human faces and breasts.
Ha! 😀
The Eugenics Wars are well established in Star Trek lore. 😀
It's kind of the diametric opposite of what is happening. At least inasmuch as we are led by people who act sub-human.
It is groundhog day every day. And for three more years
So, I'm actually starting to think there's *some* method to the madness. Without getting into too many details about where I work, let's just say Doug Burghum has a plan to start sitting down with several congressional reps with public lands in their districts in the coming weeks. His intent is to show them exactly where the oil and gas on those public lands are. Why do this now? Well, oil had been at $60-65/barrel which didn't give domestic oil companies a lot of financial incentive to comply with the "drill baby drill" goal of the admin. Why drill oil out of the ground at higher rates for $65/barrel when you could keep it in the ground until it goes higher and you make more profit on the back end? Well, if the admin starts a war that drives up the cost of the barrel, now those companies *do* have financial incentives to start drilling oil out of the ground at higher rates, and when paired with the admin letting them do so on federal lands in unprecedented fashion, they can now claim record domestic oil production on the backend when the oil companies do start extracting at higher rates.
Increasing domestic oil production might not have been the *primary* motivation for starting the war in Iran, but it's certainly one of the side benefits of it in the eyes of this admin. And when you look at how much of a motivation oil acquisition was for the Venezuela operation I can't exactly rule it out as a major motivation for the Iran "excursion."
Payback for campaign contributions ?
Travis, DJT is too dumb to think about that. There is no three dimensions chess or "the weave". By the way, long time, no hear!
He's too dumb to think about this, but the guys in the cabinet who work him for their own purposes are not. If Rubio can convince Trump to take out Maduro and Bibi can convince him to go after Iran do you think the oil bubbas can't join in on that party too?
I think this is a very astute comment. When you look at the players, rampant corruption is their hallmark. When it comes to Trump, always follow the money.
But looking it up requires him to be able to read.
Such a solid point! 🤣🤣
I take issue with the second part of this -- Trump didn’t set out to make this happen, of course. But what he’s done to oil by accident...
It's no accident when one of the most likely outcomes of his unnecessary war on Iran was to roil oil markets and spike oil and gas prices.
Everyone who has ever studied a potential war with Iran would highlight Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz and the negative impacts on global oil production, transportion, and prices.
I completely understand your feelings, but I'd just say this:
Trump is the maximalist living embodiment of Dunning-Kruger.
People truly, TRULY still do not understand how actively stupid he is. His apathy to learning is a narcissistic defense. He won't study because he knows he CAN'T learn.
One small correction: People truly, TRULY still do not understand how actively stupid MAGA is. Their apathy to learning is a narcissistic defense. They won’t study because they know they CAN’t learn.
Your final statement applies to all of MAGA - every last one of them.
You sound like JVL!
He's not apathetic towards learning. He's actively opposed to it. He doesn't want anyone else to learn either, because they would then know more than he does. Just as I typed that, I remembered he had once said something about keeping smart people around him, and that even when he did so in his first term, he never listened to them. He just fired them for disagreeing with his stupid ideas.
Yes, fair and better. And that's the narcissistic defense kicking in.
It's a pattern he's had throughout his career - every enterprise except for real estate (built upon his father's work and comparatively hard to tank in NYC) and THE APPRENTICE (Mark Burnett's baby) and "Trump" branding have failed.
Airlines, sports, casinos (!!!), hotels. All bust and in every case COULD have been turned around by people with expertise around him, had he listened.
Ultimately, we are living through the first full "Trump" TM/branded Presidency and we, as a country, are quickly heading towards the net result of the other enterprises. God help us all.
Easier and more personally profitable to loot the businesses and bankrupt them. Leave other rubes holding the bag.
In fact, when people disagree with them, the narcissist doubles down. "Nobody is going to tell me how to do this!"
He won’t study because he thinks he already knows all he needs to know, via his “very good brain”, and by osmosis from his MIT uncle. “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, to me, a deep experience.”-DJT, 2004, in his book “Think Like a Billionaire”. He trusts his gut, tries to avoid overthinking, and finds long meetings and reports a “waste of time”. So you just do stuff and “see what happens”.
And since he believes he knows everything, he doesn't even bother.
He has always been that embodiment.
What it has really exposed is the lack of any “process” in the decision making and the lack of expertise of the cabinet members (Wright, Bessent, Duffy and Wiles). The military obviously understands the Hormuz issue, but the relevant cabinet members weren’t in contact with their military counterparts to make any plans. In fact the military was not requested to make a plan until after the bombs started falling. And the flat-footedness from the listed cabinet members shows their lack of expertise (Bessent didn’t know who to call to reach the London marine insurance groups!!). Sean Duffy has no basic knowledge of how the commercial marine business works? Chris Wright doesn’t know how the world oil markets work? And none of them know how to contact folks in their own departments to find that expertise (maybe DOGE fired them all). And Suzie Wiles doesn’t have enough sense that having just Trump, Jared and Witkoff solely involved is a formula for failure?
Why do you need to know how things work? A sound bite from Fox News always solves problems!
/s
Mike, in Trumplandia, that's exactly what solves the problem. And, if not that, the next problem makes the last problem go away.
Quoting W C Fields , " the old misdirection ploy " .
I am (just barely, I will tell myself) old enough to get this reference.
ditto
DJT: the old mid section ploy
Karoline ! More big Macs and diet coke !
We all knew his cabinet was deeply, deeply unqualified. You can blame the Republican ass kissers for confirming this confederacy of dunces. None of them have any expertise in the fields they were chosen to lead and Republican Senators KNEW IT. Hang this around their necks, Dems.
the entire cabinet was chose for just these reasons
It boggles the mind that our vaunted military leadership and collection of stable geniuses in the current regime did not see the Hormuz crisis coming. It's not like, going back to at least the first Gulf War in 1990/91, we haven't heard about the likely impact there, from military operations in the region, every time we watched cable news and analysis, over all those years. You'd think somebody in their orbit maybe, possibly, perhaps saw that too and managed to connect the dots. Apparently not. So, then, what were they paying attention to instead?
His Hormuz solutions are this season’s drink bleach/shine light inside the body.
DM, of course the military leadership, sans Hegseth, saw the Hormuz crisis coming. Trump, stable genius that he is, waved it away, first floating the idea to have "my navy" escort them. Then it was, "We'll pay for the insurance!". Then it was, "We'll pay the insurance' insurance!" Etc. Etc.
There is no Norman Schwartzkoff and no Colin Powell in the current bunch.
Why Epsteins harem of course. 🙄
It is a tragic irony that the first victims of trump’s Epic Epstein distraction were young school girls.
I'm no war planning genius, but a cursory glace at a map and where the strait of Hormuz is, makes obvious that's a problem.
trump and his magat morons think maps are Woke.
It didn't say the Strait of America on the map so they ignored it
YES!
The map didn’t have ‘Gulf of America’ so they ignored it.
And I doubt that it’s an accident that the spike in oil prices happens to benefit Putin.
As do lifting some restrictions on Russian oil. But...whatev.
Trump is doing what he has always done, blustering about how the bad things he's caused are actually good while looking for his own private exit ramp. His "smart" bankruptcies stuck other people with the costs of his failures as he ensured his money was safe.
Or more simply, anyone who’s ever looked at a world map could figure it out.
There is one winner in all this. Russia and it s oil. He kills two birds with one stone. ( Intelligence to Iran and JT s easing economics on Russian oil).
Dang it, if only there were some sort of energy source that no country controlled access to. Something that didn't need to be shipped. If we had discovered such a thing decades ago we could have been pouring resources into it so we wouldn't have to be worried about being economically dependent on a limited commodity with vulnerable distribution points. Oh well, one thing's for sure. We're certainly learning our lesson. If we ever do discover such energy sources we will definitely make them a priority going forward....
Thank you so much for saying this. When will we learn that clean energy is a win win? Cheaper and more secure!
Clean energy sounds so woke. Why not use more manly coal?!?!?
/s
Man! Man! Man! Man! Manly Coal!!!!!
I dunno. Sounds like the love interest in a bodice ripper.
Dig baby dig! Drill baby drill! Make America healthy again!
Renewable energy, locally generated. Huh, who'd thunk it. Must be a hoax.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”
Perhaps the single stoopidest thing to come out of the mouth of the single stoopidest person ever to reside in the White House. Given the daily barrage of competition coming from him each and every day, like the vast amount of water constantly cascading over Niagara Falls, that truly is saying something. It's also the last thing we want to see him accomplish, lacking the ability to somehow wind the clock back and not start this stoopid war he put us into with no clear set of objectives and no exit strategy other than to stoopidly say "it's over when I say it's over," consequences be damned.
If by "we" he means "I," then yes, apparently he is correct. The hubris is the inevitable outcome of a perfect storm of a lifelong entitled, coddled, unrestrained person thinking that everything he does is right, that only his own interests and those of his enabling personal allies matter, and that a wide swath of Americans who somehow blundered into the trap of believing that a slick-talking narcissistic fool and simpleton living in vast wealth and grifting off of them at every opportunity both understands and cares about their needs and daily realities, and would put theirs ahead of his own every day. Unconscionable. And very, very stoopid.
Have I said lately how very, very, very, very much I can't wait to vote in November? If we are allowed to do so.
We'll be allowed to vote. It's a fair counting and enacting the will of the voters that's in question.
The VP swears in new Senators. I can easily see JD refusing to swear in Senators who's elections were "fraudulent."
Agree but if we are lucky Vance might be ready to 25th the President and take his place (and by lucky I don't I don't mean having Vance as Prez, I mean he being motivated to swear in the new Senators)
Either stoopid OR very, very smart (as only the most stable geenyusses can be). Millions and millions of his ardent fans embrace the wisdom (synonym: BS) he imparts. Same thing as with the lower taxes on the wealthiest, DOGE, the tariffs, the mass deportations, the two dolls for Christmas, and on and on and on. Can't you see how much better off the average American is because of all these awesome policies promulgated (okay, lied about) by this great businessman?? So smart to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear and make people believe in it!!
Well, they are at least stoopid enough to buy into the geenyus' notion that whatever he says or does, without exception, is okay as long as there is no Democrat in charge of anything, because ... well ... ... ... just because. High prices > Democrat. Putin > Democrat. Murdering little girls in an impulsive war > Democrat. All day, every day. Tired yet of so much winning? No, of so much stoopid.
Oh yeah all this WINNING is tiring me out. 🙄
I need a strong drink. And I don't drink.
If we even make it to November
It’s simple economics. When the oil companies make more money, they will invest their profits in new, innovative industries that will provide high paying jobs for American born workers the same way that tax cuts have been creating jobs since 1980. This might even be better than tariffs.
I wasn’t sure about the sarcasm and am glad you clarified. I wish you had put /s at the end.
Simple economics is what people see when they do their family budgets and realize that they are having more and more trouble paying basic bills and making ends meet. How many people will be better off from oil companies raking it in compared to those who take a hit for having less disposable income available for everyday expenses?
As for tax cuts, please show us that more jobs necessarily equates to better jobs, in both salary and benefits, value-adjusted over time. I've not been seeing it as the wealth gap grows ever greater.
I hope you know I was being sarcastic.
I didn't, sorry. I tend to take things literally. I wish there were a sarcasm font. In the spirit intended, your point makes sense.
If only he had followed up that sentence with, “When gas is $10 a gallon, you’ll thank me”.
Being from Mn., I wouldn't mind skipping spring and summer for that!
For such a self-professed "Alpha", the Sec of War is a real f'n crybaby. "Waaahh! Bad pictures of me!" "Waaahh! Say nicer things about the job I'm doing!" JFC. Grow a pair, guy.
Well, he did take OUR money to build himself a fancy new makeup room in the Pentagon. He wants to look good to justify the expense.
What would make him look good is if he put something on that makes him disappear.
If only he’d buy a suit that fits.
Couldn't agree with you more. Wasn't it the "men" on the right who referred to others outside of "their circle" as snowflakes???? FFS! Who is the snowflake? trump, kegsbreath, patel, bondi, blanche, all of em! Poor widdle babies....Jesus.
Heg followed his little tantrum with the comment that khamenei jnr is “disfigured” from the attacks. This whole administration is a vanity project.
I don't know maybe trumpy stole them too.
When Trump starts arguing about raking in money from high oil prices, the decapitated ghost of Marie Antoinette starts cackling hysterically as she remembers her own unfortunate comments about cake. Only someone as detached from reality of every day life and its costs as DJT would ever make comments about basic commodities gouging consumers as a net benefit. Political history is littered with the graves of political leaders who made that mistake and are no longer around to tell their tales. Trump may think the sun won’t burn, but it’s still the sun and still burns the reckless and Trump 2.0 has thrown all caution, if he ever had any, to the political wind.
Well, from his point of view, why the hell not? He has never paid a price for anything in his life, and he managed to win the presidency not once but twice. So of course he's throwing whatever caution he has to the wind because he doesn't care about the consequences to the country. It doesn't even register to him that being POTUS means being a fiduciary. All there is, and all that's ever been, is Trump.
And now, the bill for our collective amorality, unseriousness, and stupidity is coming due in the form of bloodshed and economic collapse.
I think the odds of the President never paying any consequences are well above 50%.
Hey, the odds could be 400%, 500% or 1,500%! That's how much Trump says he is reducing drug prices. He is a mathematical stable genius.
Agreed, Mike. In fact, I think it's over 70%.
I think 70% is low. I'm closer to 90%.
Over as the Trumpist site “Coffee and Covid” they’re raging about the SAVE Act (it MUST pass) and of course, vaccines.
Only the occasional reader mentions the war, and gets dogpiled.
Trump only sees bigly corporations in our country—we the people are invisible and inconsequential to him. I like the way you said it better, Keith.
Hey JD! Has Vlad even said, "thank you"?
So wait, Sec Pete: If the administration did NOT underestimate the war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz, then they're cool with the flaming ships and the cowering crews and the frightened insurance providers and expensive oil? Oh, right. Expensive oil trumps all and quickly lines the pockets of the right kind of Americans - the rich ones.
Don’t tell Pete or DJT, but the commercial maritime industry is not only concerned about the cargo and the vessel, but they also don’t want to risk the lives of their crews.
Woke wusses, the lot of them!
"...you should have enough of a sense of decency and dignity..."
Trump? Decency?? You mean Donnie-grab-'em-by-the-pussy?" That guy? What on earth would make you expect decency or dignity from this ogre?
Bill: "To make this obvious point isn’t to be woke or even antiwar. It’s to be adult and civilized. And however much Trump has degraded our civic culture, I think it’s a point with which most Americans would agree."
"Most Americans" brought us to this moment, and I will believe they rediscovered their virtue and decency when I see it.
I certainly hope that they can get past the blinders that the cult members apparently are wearing.
At the very end of Chris Hayes's show on MSNOW, Chris asked former Montana Senator John Tester what he thought about Trump's new messaging that higher oil prices are going to make America rich. The Senator just giggled.
I'm surprised Tester didn't cry as he well knows agriculture doesn't run on crude oil. It runs on diesel gas and fertilizers, both refined oil products. A lot of fertilizer comes from the Middle East. This is another knife in the back of farmers and ranchers. Food is going to go up some more.
Tester was very serious when talking about the effects on farmers and rural America. He only giggled at the absurdity of Trump's new messaging.
I don't know how many more times the orange idiot has to say he hates everyone before people will believe him.
Bypassing Congress to start an unasked for and illegal war with obviously no strategy. Our military dying - for what? Gas prices affect everything. Prices go up, which were higher because of his tariffs. Boasting that yay! we're making money - not you, you peasants! Let's not forget the concentration camps, the murders of 4 US citizens, mass deportation to foreign prisons. Human rights, what are they? This inhuman hates everything and everyone he's not.
he even hates his own fan club in the WH. Making his toadies wear ill-fitting shoes (I'm sorry Joe Perticone, those Florsheims are fugly AF). He hates them and will humiliate them. And they deserve it.
That really is the only appropriate response. You cannot give a serious answer to what was a very unserious response from Piggy trying to save his political bacon.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”
And war is good for the casket business.
SOW Pete Hegseth: "The sooner David Ellison takes over that network[CNN], the better.” Well, in case anyone was still magically thinking that there wouldn't be any attempt to Foxify CNN, forget it.
Our version of Big Brother, Trump, and the Ministry of Truth, fabulists and defamers like Fox and Newsmax have arrived thru the power of the Murdochs and now the broligarchs. Fortunately, we still have alternatives like the Bulwark and other freelancers on Substack.
saying that out loud was stupid as hell, though. He reeks of desperation.
...and 12yo Scotch.
Rising prices will not impact 47's hold on his base. They are there primarily for cultural reasons, not economic. He can blame the prices on foreign interests, illegal immigrants, and Dem-supporting elitists, and the base will believe him.
Rising prices will hurt him with independents and Dem-leaners who skipped the last election. The former voted for him either as a protest against Covid-driven inflation/interest, the Apprentice myth of his biz acumen, or both.
They may blame "the other", Karl, but they'll still feel the pain and that's good enough for me.
Dude! The spike in oil prices is Biden's fault! Duh!
Trump is already blaming rising gas prices on Obama and Biden.
Excursion. Hmm. Silly at first, of course, and repugnant, but it does give the war a kind of Love Boat vibe. Let's all meet tonight at the Straits of Hormuz for margaritas and munchies.
I'm sorry to inform you that the Love Boat is now currently ablaze.
"Isaac, I need a drink! Gimme the strong stuff."
Gopher knew what was coming so he ran for Congress!
I was thinking more like an excursion from a Norwegian cruise during the winter. 🥶
I was thinking about a large Ford
SUV . 😁
I am so proud that I now have the opportunity to allow oil companies to make more money!
Higher gas prices are why people voted Republican in 2024, right?
yeah. those damn Biden gas station stickers are really befuddling now.
Not really, because it's still his fault (/s, in case it is not obvious).
Thanks Obama...
Those stickers are being replaced by “Trump did this” stickers
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DVSW4WD8?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
Good!