David Badash

President Trump today declared war on the First Amendment and journalism organizations that report negatively about him. He decreed they and their reporting are "illegal." And he did it in a speech to officials at DOJ — you know, people who prosecute crimes. This is fascism.

NEW from @MorningConsult: 🚨Voters earning under $50k have swung 7% toward Democrats, from dead even to D+7 🚨Non-college voters have swung from R+9 to even 🚨Dems are seeing a RISE in backing among men -- male RV's entered the cycle at R+11; they now sit at R+5

"Stocks surge..." to the level they were at [checks calendar] ...on Thursday.

I had not heard this part of the bin Laden raid. From Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen.

the corruption is the most structurally significant part of the administration. drain. the. swamp.

BREAKING. Thirty-six hours ago President Donald Trump said “obliterate.” This morning he said “productive conversations.” The question every trader, diplomat, and general is asking: what broke between Saturday night and Monday morning? Six things broke simultaneously. Not one of them was Iranian. First. The bill arrived. The Pentagon requested over $200 billion in supplemental funding. The war cost $11.3 billion in six days, $16.5 billion in twelve. At $1.38 billion per day and accelerating, congressional resistance to the supplemental is real. The money that was supposed to fund “days not weeks” now needs a vote that may not pass. Second. The Fed killed the rate-cut thesis. On March 18, the Federal Reserve held rates at 3.5 to 3.75 percent and revised its 2026 PCE inflation forecast to 2.7 percent from 2.4, citing the Iran war energy shock. The dot plot shows one cut in all of 2026, down from two. Every basis point of delayed easing is pain for housing, credit, and the Magnificent Seven. The war that was supposed to demonstrate strength is demonstrating inflation. Third. The allies revolted politely. Twenty-two countries signed up to coordinate on Hormuz. Zero committed a warship during combat. Japan is releasing strategic reserves. South Korea’s Kospi has fallen 12 percent. Europe’s gas surged 35 percent after Qatar’s LNG was knocked offline & declared force majeure up to 5 years. Trump called NATO “cowards” and got a press release. The coalition of the willing is a coalition of the waiting. Fourth. TSMC sent the signal. Taiwan imports nearly 97 percent of its energy. Its LNG reserves cover 11 days. Qatar supplies a third of global helium, which TSMC needs for chip fabrication. The helium is bottled behind a closed strait. Every Nvidia GPU, every Apple chip, every AI cluster depends on a fab in Hsinchu counting its gas in single-digit days. The Magnificent Seven have shed hundreds of billions as energy rotation crushes tech. Fifth. Birol named the damage. The IEA chief told Australia this morning that 40 energy assets across nine countries are severely damaged, global oil supply has fallen 11 million barrels per day, the crisis exceeds both 1970s shocks combined, and no country is immune. He named fertilisers and helium as interrupted flows. The man who runs global energy security called the war Trump started the worst energy crisis in modern history. Sixth. The midterms. Gas prices are up 93 cents per gallon. Sixty-six percent of Americans call this a war of choice. Sixty percent disapprove. Fifty-seven percent say it is going badly. The numbers that matter in Washington are not barrels per day. They are approval ratings in swing states where voters fill their tanks every Tuesday. Six pressures. One post. President Trump did not discover diplomacy. He discovered arithmetic. The 48-hour ultimatum was a threat. The 5-day pause is a confession that the threat’s consequences were worse than its target. Destroying power plants would have sealed the strait permanently, triggered Ghalibaf’s promise to “irreversibly destroy” Gulf desalination and energy infrastructure, crashed TSMC’s supply chain, spiked inflation past 3 percent, and handed the midterms to the opposition on a platter of $7 gasoline. The pause is real. The relief is not. The strait is still closed. The 40 assets are still damaged. The fertiliser is still blocked. The planting window is still closing. The five-day clock is already ticking. The molecules do not negotiate. The molecules wait. Full deep dive analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

This is absolutely insane: At 7:04 AM ET today, President Trump said “the US and Iran have had productive discussions" to end the Iran War. By 7:10 AM ET, the S&P 500 surged +240 points adding +$2 TRILLION in market cap. 27 minutes later, Iran completely denied all of President Trump's claims and said there has been "no contact" with the US. By 8:00 AM ET. the S&P 500 had fallen -120 points erasing -$1 trillion in market cap. That's a $3 TRILLION swing market cap in 56 minutes, just in the S&P 500. What is happening here?

In a discussion with @michaeljswalker on Friday, I said that Trump was being presented options to strike civilian infrastructure in Iran. The aim would be to cripple Iran’s economy and to make it harder for Iran to persist in the war. I explained that hitting Iran’s critical infrastructure might shorten the war, but it would also intensify it. For that reason, that overall damage done to region and the global economy could end up being far worse during a shorter war. If Trump hits a major power plant, Iran will respond by hitting utilities in the Gulf states and Israel—including power plants and desalination facilities—and will count on the fact that it has to hit fewer targets to have a bigger impact. Iran has nearly 500 power plants, Israel has around 50. The largest Iranian plant, the Damavand Combined Cycle plant, accounts for about 4% of Iran’s total capacity. Israel’s largest plant, Orot Rabin, accounts for 20% of electricity production. The fact that a US president is posting a message like this on social media represents a total breakdown in the systems that are meant to ensure the US fights wars intelligently and judiciously. The commander in chief is not of sound mind, no one in his cabinet is willing to admit it, and we are being pushed towards the edge of an abyss.

So many American people have no clue how much of their future is being outright stolen from them right now. They fundamentally don't understand the gilded age or the 1890s. If we dont bring this generation's version of teddy roosevelt and fdr, there will be nothing that resembles a middle class. Just haves and have nots with constant violent protests in the streets.

co-founder of the American Conservative magazine has gone so far around the bend over the Iran war that he’s BlueAnon now

The FT now reporting that, even without the energy shocks, there's a pretty good chance that the closure of Hormuz will pop the AI bubble and lead to a stock market crash

Love the Economist.. In 4 years Joe Biden and Democrats took the complete disaster of an economy that Trump left after his first term and transformed it into the “envy of the world.” The United States economy recovered from the pandemic faster than any other country. 16 million jobs were created, including 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. This was done through investment in infrastructure, new technologies and clean energy. Investment in the U.S. was booming, our farmers didn’t need a $14 billion bailout, wages were rising and inflation was falling for two straight years. The minute Trump took office inflation started to rise, soon after 15,000 farms went bankrupt, home foreclosures spiked, and over 20 million Americans could no longer afford health insurance. Donald Trump is destroying America. #truth #Corruption #economy #accountability #Trump #Biden

Hey! My colleagues at NPR made a voter registration guide. Enter your state and learn the deadlines to register in time to make your voice heard in this year’s primaries. apps.npr.org/voter-registra…

Cannot be said enough how thoroughly Trump has fucked the economy or how thoroughly the media is ignoring it.

Labeling every American of the opposition political party as an enemy to the country may be the most un-American thing any president has ever said. Dangerous.

Trump is literally proposing the same exact plan that President Obama already had in place before Trump ended it.

Fertilizer prices have moved up to their highest levels since September 2022, rising 44% YoY. About a third of global fertilizer supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. This will drive food price inflation higher in the coming weeks/months. Video: youtube.com/watch?v=L3o7T1…

The flow of liquefied natural gas from the Gulf is expected to come to an abrupt end in the next 10 days ft.trib.al/fbv1oLK

Trump essentially defends his non-endorsement in the Texas primary by saying any candidate could beat Talarico. This is a rejection of Cornyn’s message, which is that a Paxton primary win jeopardizes the Senate and down ballot. @realDonaldTrump/116273343074887409" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTru…

What a sick human being. A permanent disfiguring scar on the dignity of our nation.

@RepMaxMiller Request a community note for this garbage please.

It’s an absolute shame that the Democratic Party tarnished a good man by making his last case the Russia Hoax. What we knew now is what we knew then. RIP Semper fidelis