๐บ๐ธ A year after Charlie Kirk was killed, Vice President JD Vance said he still wants to call him for advice and canโt.
โFirst itโs you dial his number and hang up before he answers,โ Vance said. โThe closer you get to this 1 year mark, you realize heโs just not there anymore.โ
He called Kirk a man with โso much life to liveโ and said the deepest hole is Erikaโs and the kidsโ, but that everyone around him feels it.
๐ธ๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ท Saudi oil production just fell to its lowest level since 1990.
Riyadh pumped 6.238 million barrels a day in August, a huge 1.9 million barrel-a-day drop from just a month earlier.
And this came after Saudi production had actually been recovering.
Then the U.S.-Iran fighting flared up again.
Export routes got squeezed, tankers came under attack in the Persian Gulf, and Saudi crude exports dropped by roughly a third to around 3 million barrels a day.
Riyadh even appears to have pulled some oil out of storage to keep more barrels reaching the market.
So Saudi Arabia has plenty of oil.
The war is making it much harder to move it.
And with Brent already above $100, thatโs exactly the kind of problem the market doesnโt need right now.
๐ฎ๐ท Iran is trying to make it a little cheaper for foreign ships to keep coming.
The government has temporarily suspended a 10% charge on freight fees for foreign vessels carrying oil, gas and other liquid petroleum products in and out of Iran.
And the timing makes sense.
The U.S. naval blockade has already hammered Iranโs seaborne oil exports.
That extra 10% was making shipments even more expensive.
So Tehran is dropping it for now, hoping lower costs will give foreign fleets a little more reason to keep carrying Iranian cargo.
The Houthis have reportedly seized Zukur Island in the southern Red Sea, "following rocket attacks and a ground assault using boats carrying armed forces."
Seizing Zukur (Zuqar) gives the Houthis MAJOR military leverage over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the vital narrow water passage for global trade and oil.
The island sits directly in the southern Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb, where about 10-12% of global shipping and huge amounts of oil pass through daily.
Yemen holds sovereignty over Zukur Island, but it has long been a subject of dispute with Eritrea.
๐บ๐ธ Trump proposes $5,000 for every AMERICAN adult if Republicans maintain control of Congress after the midterms!
His political strategy could have been much better on this oneโฆ
The bold play would be to propose the payments regardless of which party wins control. If Republicans winโฆ send the checks. If Dems get control and kill the effortโฆ paint them as obstructionists and elites.
It just looks like a bribe the way itโs being presented now.
๐จ๐บ๐ธ Oil just punched back above $100, and Wall Street is feeling the heat...
Brent closed at $101.21 yesterday after U.S. strikes on Iranian tankers and Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia gave traders another reason to worry about supply.
And pretty quickly, this becomes everyone elseโs problem too.
U.S. gas is already averaging $4.22 a gallon.
Diesel? Record $5.94.
That feeds inflation, which makes cutting rates a whole lot harder.
Bond yields jumped, the S&P 500 fell 0.5%, and suddenly everyoneโs watching the Middle East and the Fed at the same time.
Oil is basically squeezing the market from both sides now.
Top White House advisers, including JD Vance and Marco Rubio, have privately warned Trump that the war with Iran could last through the rest of his presidency, telling him that Tehran could continue resisting U.S. pressure and potentially extend the conflict beyond Inauguration Day in January 2029, The Wall Street Journal reports
โThe Republican Midterm Convention last night, in Dallas, was a major, sold out hitโฆThe overall numbers beat the NFL. The Arena, which was really nice, beat its own attendance records. The place was packed! There were thousands of people outsideโฆโ