Happy Hour

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T(r)olled

The world economy won't collapse if the Strait is tolled, and it is certainly a funny consequence of Trump's actions.

This is new information to Iran. The country had not been monetizing its geographic good fortune of having 20 percent of the world’s oil, 20 percent of the world’s liquefied natural gas, and one-third of the world’s nitrogen-based fertilizer pass near its shoreline. Closing the strait was always an implied threat that would result from aggressive action against the nation or its leadership, something known to everyone in the world except Donald Trump, it appears. But the threat was typically closure, and what’s emerging is something quite different. Iran has slowly realized that, unbelievably, it can actually get away with throwing a tollgate across the strait. Thanks to Trump and Israel, Iran has gained immense economic and diplomatic leverage.

What's Happening

I am not alleging grand conspiracy here, but my impression is that US domestic news outlets are not exactly emphasizing Iran's attacks on various international targets. You see a bit more coverage in the business press and of course international outlets.

Bye Pam

Bondi is confirmed out.

We Won, Or We Think We Did

Reading pieces on Trump and Iran and even the more realistic and skeptical ones still pretend that Trump has "goals" or "objectives" other than "look like a cool character on TV and get praise from people for it."

This is from a NYT email:

President Trump said in a speech that the “core strategic objectives in Iran are nearing completion.” In a 19-minute address, he offered no timeline for ending the conflict, but said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”

What are those strategic objectives, anyway? Over the course of the war, Trump’s statements about America’s goals have been wildly inconsistent.

His speech didn’t contain much new, but it seemed to set the stage for Trump to declare an end to the war. Today’s newsletter is about what the U.S. would leave behind in Iran and the Middle East if that happens.

I get that reporters aren't going to write like shitposters, but political journalists have a lot of freedom, generally, in how they cover things.  It is a choice not to paint an accurate portrait of the man.

They will argue various things about why critics like me just want them to do Resistance Journalism, but take this from David Sanger:

For more than a decade President Trump has been intently focused on making sure Iran never had the nuclear fuel in hand to build a nuclear weapon. Until this morning, when he told Reuters in an interview, that he didn’t really care because it is “so far underground.”

Is that first sentence even remotely true? You could at least qualify it with a "President Trump has claimed...".  We know he ripped up the agreement in his first term because the black president made the agreement, and that doing so made it more likely, not less, that Iran would make more potential fuel. 

 That's even before we get to the hilarious notion that Trump could possibly be intently focused on much of anything aside from his personal wealth and his TV watching.

If journalistic NORMS let you write that first sentence, which attributes motives to Trump's actions that are at best barely in evidence, you can write a much truer version of it, which would be more like "Trump started a war in Iran so the Trump character gets praised by Fox News hosts."
 

Whoopsie Doodle

Don't know who specifically is to blame here, but from the DOGE boys to Trump himself, no one in this administration gives any thought to security.

The FBI last week deemed a recent China-linked cyber intrusion into a sensitive agency surveillance system a “major incident,” meaning it poses significant risks to U.S. national security, according to one congressional aide and two U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

There is a nontrivial chance someone just flips a switch on the whole Treasury at some point, maybe because some DOGE kid dropped a thumb drive while scoring some ketamine. 

Small Pleasures

It's always a reasonable bet that the replacement will be worse - or more competent at doing evil - but it is still fun watching Trump turn on his lickspittles one by one.

President Donald Trump has privately mused about firing his Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her with EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Morning

Thoughtful Thursday

Happy Hour

I suspect even the sickos will skip the Trump speech.

The Final Frontier

I know he has nothing to do with it (presumably), but anything space-related makes me think of Musk now, and that therefore everything's gonna blow up.

NASA's long-awaited Artemis II mission is set to launch four astronauts on a journey around the moon today. Liftoff is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Sure Why Not

I'm not even being snarky in the title. American hegemony has not been all good! Maybe time for something new.

JUST OUT: Trump has raised with SecState Rubio and other top aides the possibility of withdrawing from NATO if allies don’t help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. officials said.

He has discussed leaving NATO, or at least potentially finding ways to weaken the U.S. commitment.

— Alex Ward (@alexbward) April 1, 2026

Above my pay grade, but aside from "change is complicated" and "this is the way the world works" I don't see many convincing counterarguments.

Of Course He Did

If you have had a malignant narcissist in your life - and I have - you know it's quite the miracle that Trump left SCOTUS quietly (presumably), instead of somehow making a scene.

Reading The Tea Leaves

Based on the commentary of various SCOTUS watchers, Trump loses the birthright citizenship case 7-2.

I'm still not gonna place a bet on that.

...Trump left in the middle, of course.

Proper Respect

I do hope our glorious president pays proper respect to the Supreme Court justices the only way knows how to do: falling asleep in front of them.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump plans to sit in on Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship, making him the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation's highest court.

I try not to think too much about this case. One reason is that I decided wasting bits of my beautiful brain thinking about The Law is about as productive as playing fantasy football. The other is that it is the case that breaks everything, if the Supremos choose to do it.

Running On Air

I suppose I have predicted (not really, but I am pessimistic) 7 of the last 2 US economic crashes, but it is hard to see how stock (and today, oil!) price shifts match current world events and appropriate confidence in the man currently steering the ship.

Maybe the global economy has uncoupled more from oil than I would have thought.

Morning

late start

Happy Hour

Get happy

What Will Brian Say

My bet is still on "Trump pushes ahead catastrophically," but if Trump does "cut and run," as the kids used to say, will Brian praise him (yes!)?

Starlink Go Boom

No idea what is causing this, but it would be "funny" if they were all little time bombs.

SpaceX says it lost contact with a Starlink satellite after suffering an “anomaly.” SpaceX isn’t saying exactly what happened, but space-tracking company Leo Labs says it “immediately detected tens of objects in the vicinity” of Starlink 34343 after the event.

...

SpaceX suffered a similar episode in December when it suddenly lost communications with a satellite that also seemingly exploded. That incident occurred just a week after a near miss with a Chinese satellite.

Get Elon To Fix It

I bet it would be trivial to egg him on to claim he could.

After 16 years and $8 billion, the military’s new GPS software still doesn’t work

“It’s a very stressing program. We are still considering how to ensure we move forward.”