The naming of names
No sooner did I say it late yesterday than I read this morning, “Trump floats renaming Strait of Hormuz the ‘Trump Strait.’” So predictable. Trump, however, went one step more egotistical than I was thinking when I expressed my surprise that he hadn’t already named it “Strait America” to go with his new “Lake America” because that would sure show Iran who won!
I actually hope he does do something this egotistical and pointless because then he will be memorialized on maps and blamed for decades for turning Hormuz, the strait of formerly free international waters that is now claimed by Iran, into the strait that now charges massive tolls for Iran that the rest of us will pay for shipments to pass through, thanks entirely to him. That can be his legacy throughout the world for as long as the situation stands. He’ll have his name plastered all over this extraordinary war failure. So, let’s hope he lays claim to his biggest failure, which the whole world will despise for decades, since that is the likely outcome of this war.
“Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT???” Trump wrote in the post Wednesday morning.
Practically begging for praise he could read in the replies as well as justification that would allow him to say his usual, “I don’t know, but many people are saying I should. They keep telling me, ‘Mr. President, since you freed up the strait, you should name it after yourself.’ Maybe I will. I don’t know. I’m thinking about it. We shall see.” And then the next day he does what he had already decided to do.
“Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he wrote.
Oh, it’s hotter than ever before! That’s for sure. Between my last editorial and this one, the war around the strait blew up like nobody’s business! That took about twelve hours. The final war video posted below does a great job of explaining how Iran’s strategy changed in exactly the manner I said it had the day Trump’s MoU was broken, transforming Iran from what had been a defensive war posture into a determined offensive posture that is no longer aimed at ending the war.
The analyst in the video explains how Iran has continually dialed up the damage to Trump and the US by teasing Trump into escalating this war of attrition, then using Trump’s escalations as justification for their own intensification because their goal, after receiving so much pain and damage and seeing so many “deals” go nowhere, was no longer to escape the pain but to do everything they could to make Trump feel as much pain as possible in order to drive the US out of the Persian Gulf forever. It explains how well they are succeeding in each movement toward that goal and why their moves are working and why Trump’s are not. Last night that all blew up into a huge regional conflagration that I’ll write about; but, for now, I’ll stay with subject of the moment:
Trump loves to give things new names to honor himself, even though they are often names that no one but he and his sycophants and billionaire buddies (when they are around him) will ever use:
The order renaming Lake Ontario directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and his department to update the Geographic Names Information System with the new name. Canada rejected the change, though Google and Apple have recently updated their maps.
Figures. Google and Apple should have ignored him, but he controls them because the billionaire consortium/cartel/cabal/coven of witches and warlocks that operates this nation solely to the benefit of the 1% sucks up to him daily in order to get those big Mar-a-Lago invites where the big deals get made over “the best chocolate cake anywhere,” as well as to get advance notice on White House insider stock, bond, and oil trades based on shortly upcoming Trumpian war announcements.
It is no wonder a Gallup poll in the news today says a record number of Americans (89% or “more than ever before,” as Trump would exclaim) believes the US government is corrupt—that number having soared over the past year “like never before!”
See, perception of corruption took a hockey-stick bend:
Fooled but not fueled
The US energy secretary, Christ Wright, sort of backed up the president’s claim that, thanks to Trump, the Strait of TheRump is hotter than ever before by saying the amount of oil now passing through has hit the biggest “record EVER since the conflict began.” Huh? Break that down for me. How is it the biggest record of oil shipping through the strait EVER, if it is just the biggest amount shipping through after this six-month conflict began? Doesn’t that wording betray just how much all the king’s men (and women) try to pump up every claim in Trumpian exaggeration to their administration’s favor?
“The biggest EVER! … (whispered:) since this year.”
Uh, huh, sure! Maybe as a spurt, but not a continuing flow. If the flow is up in the numbers the secretary gave, the reason I claim it is just a spurt is that Iran just reported today that it hit and disabled two tankers traveling through the Strait of Whatever in response to the United States’ latest escalated attack on Iran, which was in response to Iran attacking US bases in Jordan, which was in response to earlier US efforts to try to get or keep the strait open by destroying Iranian mining operations, which are what blew holes in the ships just reported about a day after the US announced all mines had been cleared. So, the strait is in constant flux under the president’s full control. Therefore, so is the flow of oil as we have all heard several times by now, how ships did u-turns as soon as the missiles were flying. Since Iran is clearly far from done exercising its own control over the strait, missiles and mines will continue to interrupt things:
Two oil tankers hit naval mines while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said, as U.S. and Iranian forces exchanged a fresh round of strikes in the region.
In a statement shared by state media, the influential hard-line military group said the vessels had been disabled and forced to disembark their crew after ignoring warnings on taking an “illegal route” through the strait.
But the president says he has the strait under full control now.
President Donald Trump said he was “not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table,” as U.S. forces completed a fresh round of attacks against the Middle Eastern country on Tuesday stateside….
Of course not. Iran has made clear it will not ever return to the bargaining table with Trump because, for some reason, they think he lies all the time.
In a Truth Social post, Trump reiterated that the U.S. has “almost total control” over the Strait of Hormuz, while adding that Tehran’s economy was collapsing.
OK, so he’s faded back a little to “almost total control” because the tanker blasts by mines that he has just said were “completely cleared” forced a little retreat in his wording from the recent days when he was boasting of “total conrol.”
And that is where the big news hit today, which started with Trump’s “fresh round of attacks against the Middle Eastern country on Tuesday stateside.” Iran didn’t hesitate this time, but immediately engaged in larger attacks, it claims, than it has ever made, causing massive damage to US bases throughout the Middle East (they claim). However, I am going to save the huge news of escalation in Trump’s War (and it really is major) so I can stay in context here with tracking all the misstatements and lies that swirled around today to contribute to the fog of war that smogs up our economic decline.
If things are always going as well as this energy secretary says every time he speaks, then why are we now starting to see signs that say gasoline and diesel are “out.” The anecdotal report by Hal Turner in the headlines that follow may not mean much in that, across an entire nation, there are, every day, gas stations that didn’t get their fuel orders in on time to avoid running out of fuel. People may be especially keen on watching that and reporting it in a time when everyone is wondering if shortages will hit.
Except … in this case, one person making the report says she travelled to several gas stations in the same area and most of them were out of fuel. That never happens without a regional shortage or a major incident, such as an evacuation order, forcing everyone to leave at once fuel up at once. She reported that even the store owners asked, “What the hell is going on?” apparently wondering why they had not received fuel deliveries.
Notices that say “NO GAS or DIESEL till further notice” are also not normal. Most establishments that forgot to order in time would tell their customers when their regular shipment will be arriving when they apologize for the missed service … unless they have no idea when they will be able to get more fuel:
Stations that didn’t notice their tanks were close to empty in time to avoid winding up empty would usually find out right away from their supplier how quickly they could get fuel delivered and would let their customers know. So, we’ll have to see if this phenomenon spreads. Reports came from individuals in several states. It may be the beginning of exactly what I warned of for “this summer,” starting out “spotty at first.”
You can see other reports like this in Hal Turner’s article. Back to the secretary of energy’s braggadocios claims:
Iran is losing its ability to “hold the world economic hostage” as the U.S. military helps oil tankers sail through Hormuz, Wright said. Tehran is “causing some disruption but they are losing that card,” he said.
The energy secretary and his boss with a flamelike swirl of gasoline-colored hair have both been proclaiming this for almost half a year. When does it start to become true? We’ll see that it is far from true when I cover the latest outbreaks in the Trump-Iran war, which you can also read all about below.
Fed up with falsehood
The energy secretary’s claims rang about as true as official Fed Joker John Williams, who patted down the big escalation in bond yields by saying the yield surge on US Treasuries is “due to strong economic prospects.” Hmm. Really? The surge in sovereign yields, which is happening globally, not just in the US, is due to US economic strength right now? It couldn’t have anything to do—happening simultaneously all over the world as it is—with the global inflation from world war and international tariffs imposed on the world by Donald J. Trump on top of the risks from soaring government debt, piling up under Trump “like never before,” as he would say … could it? Williams did admit, when asked at the end of his joker routine whether the war had anything to do with rising yields that it may have contributed a little. What a funny guy. He probably just doesn’t want to upset his orange boss.
Trump’s tariff trickery
But not as funny as this guy: President Tromp-all-over-the-world’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnik, said he didn’t want his agency to be responsible for raising the price of pasta, so he dropped the tariff on pasta. Yet, he’s the lying nutball who claimed with a crooked smile (and still does claim) that tariffs do not cause inflation! Liars to the core of their being, now by their own admission.
Here is how disingenuous they are and destructive to all of the rest of us:
Agency leaders first stepped in late last year, after a Commerce Department investigation determined in September that leading Italian pasta makers had been underpricing the products they sold in the U.S., in violation of trade rules. The proposed punishment — sky-high tariffs on the pantry staple — drew headlines at a time when the administration was trying to convince Americans its trade agenda was not driving up prices.
So, the Italians were offering Americans a special bargain on their spaghetti, which would be a nice help for the average American, struggling with affordability. The administration saw this and decided it needed to impose a suddenly higher tariff on noodles to raise the price so American companies wouldn’t have to lower their prices in order to compete! Then they argued that tariffs don’t raise prices for Americans! Such audacity! (Even though raising prices that were too low was their whole justification for raising the tariffs sky high.)
But now that the war is making inflation more problematic, they are stripping away their own tariffs, conveniently in time for the election because affordability has become a hot campaign issue. Of course, they always KNEW that tariffs raise prices for Americans. That was why they added the import tariff to Italian macaroni! And they believe—and it appears they are right—that most of America is dumb enough to believe such self-contradictory lies.
Secretary of Commerce Coward Sputnik sputters lies like an antique engine sputters droplets of slick oil and backfires out poorly burned exhaust fumes. They are the smelly air he expels from his lungs on a regular basis … just as his gasoline-colored boss emits fumes of fake news and random lies daily.
“Lutnick was very upset that the work was making it on the news, from the perspective that he was responsible for inflation,” one of the people said. “Then he became a micromanager. He micromanaged every decision that came out to try to water down enforcement and compliance.”
All this noise and trouble to create tariffs, just to undo them behind the scenes!
In particular, he and other top Commerce officials have discouraged staff from pursuing the most aggressive possible tariffs in the pasta case and other similar investigations into trade violations, according to four people familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to share unreported details about the internal discussions.
Does Trump talk big and carry a puny stick? Some of his mistresses like Stormy Daniels have claimed so. His prolific history of short-lived TACO tariffs certainly seem to say so.
In some cases, senior officials instructed staff to recalculate rates that were deemed too high, two of the people said. The result has been much lower duties on violators in recent months compared to the past.
Those decisions are worrying career Commerce officials as well as other trade and legal experts, who say the rates for any new duties should be based on hard data and legal criteria. And it illustrates how concerns about inflation and affordability approaching the midterm elections have begun to override Trump’s desire to crack down on foreign companies that cheat domestic industry.
Let’s lower those tariffs behind the scenes before the election and try not to breathe a word about it because they are shoving prices up so high! No wonder the tariff impact has not been quite as obvious by now as I thought it would be (though it is still bad enough). The man and his band of merry men (and women) in charge of implementing Trump’s tariffs have been secretly reducing their damage—the resulting inflation that was never supposed to happen—as we run up to the midterm elections to make it appear they are not causing the inflation.
A Commerce official denied that Lutnick had intervened in the rate decisions, or that the agency had changed its practice of assigning higher duty rates to companies that don’t participate in its investigations.
“Secretary Lutnick has not directed Commerce staff to apply or avoid any particular rates or set of rate options,” the official said in a statement to POLITICO. “Commerce follows a transparent and established decision making process for each case.” The official was granted anonymity to speak about the department’s decision-making.
Uh, huh. Sure! It wasn’t Lutnik’s fault, prevalent prevaricator that he is, that all these tariff retreats happened. It was just the people beneath him who saw a need and responded to it, even though some of those complaining about what they say he is doing are the people beneath him!
The optics of the extremely high proposed rates on Italian pasta and other consumer products and manufacturing inputs, including Chinese wooden cabinets and Russian palladium used in auto parts, have alarmed Lutnick and other senior agency officials as the administration works to tamp down affordability concerns.
That’s more like it. In other words, tariffs are driving inflation sky high (or would if they were actually imposed per Trump policy), and that can’t be seen to be happening right now because we are heading into an election, which many are saying will greatly curtail his presidency’s unconstitutional government, including particularly in declaring wars. No wonder more people than ever before are saying the US government is corrupt.
The Commerce secretary, who has fought to keep himself at the center of the White House economic agenda, was determined not to let his department’s decisions feed one of the president’s biggest political vulnerabilities.
Lutnick signaled to staff across meetings and private correspondence in the fall of 2025 that the administration would no longer prioritize the most aggressive forms of enforcement, according to the four people.
He would be wise at any time to not carry out those orders, except that the president hired him TO carry out those orders. But Lutnik is saving the president from himself, so I suspect he will be forgiven during this vital election season as we are about to enter the final fall stretch.
That same month, the Commerce Department finalized the tariffs on the Italian pasta companies at a maximum rate of 7 percent for Garofalo and a minimum of 2.65 percent for La Molisana, while 11 other Italian companies were hit with a 5.21 percent duty — far lower than the 91.74 percent rate initially proposed.
Mama Mia! Pasta was about to get as hot as oil! And I’m not talking the olive oil that is sometimes cooked in with it. I almost want to thank these clowns for undermining the big boss’s tariff policies, except that the whole outfit lies all the way along about what they are doing and especially about the inflationary impact of tariffs, and are now likely just lowering tariffs to lower prices until the election has passed. So, it’s all a cloud of deception like the fog of war. It’s the fog of tariff wars.
Like Trump’s TACO trades throughout his tariff wars and during the Iran war where he switch-hits every time he’s up to bat against Iran—you know, the sweet times Kushner and the White House execs cast bets moments before Trump publicly announces his switch—the White House avoids its own policies every time they turn out to work against it as bad polices want to do. The rest of us suffer through the chaos of being bounced endlessly up and down. Take, for example,
… the Russian palladium case, where they say producers refused to cooperate — normally a trigger for the harshest penalty available. Yet Commerce in April set a final antidumping rate of 132.83 percent, far below the 828.09 percent the petitioners who requested the investigation had sought. The duties never went into effect, however, after the International Trade Commission, which determines whether imports are harming a U.S. industry, did not find evidence that imports were hurting U.S. producers.
What? I thought that was the whole reason for the tariffs (besides the false claim of making other nations pay our taxes for us). Wasn’t it because imports were hurting US producers? If they weren’t, then why the negotiated tariff on those items in the first place? Reckless abandon in the drafting of the tariffs? I think the US just found itself desperately needing palladium when the tariffs suddenly caused the very shortages and supply-line troubles that the administration had said they would never cause. The problem with rule by king has always been that it winds up depending on the whim of the king on any given day. So, with Trump, it has endlessly been tariff on, tariff off, tariff on again, rinse, repeat and recycle.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter last month stressing that the process for determining trade penalties must “remain apolitical and free from conflicts of interest,” citing the case of a South Korean aluminium company whose parent company reportedly paid $2 million to the Trump Organization last year while its aluminum affiliate was fighting proposed Commerce Department duties.
Well, that is one way to wrestle value out of a tariff: Drop the duty if they pay the president’s business directly! (Of course, the family business is now under the administration of his offspring in order to maintain an arm’s-length relationship—measured by an arm made shorter by very small hands)
Other cases reflect similar reductions….
The laws targeting trade cheats are some of the most precise trade statutes on the books, laying out strict criteria for when the duties can be applied and lifted, as well as what Commerce and the ITC should look for when determining rates and outcomes.
Trade attorneys say the administration could face lawsuits if the lower rates can’t be justified by the economic data.
Highest-ever rating for corrupt government, is what the polls say today.
“The statutes tell them how to calculate a rate. It doesn’t tell them to pick the lowest one because they’re worried about grocery prices. That’s the problem,” a lawyer who works on trade remedy cases said. “Is it legal? I have some serious questions about that.”
Well, one thing it certainly is: Their willingness to bend their rules that far is proof they don’t believe their own lies about tariffs not raising prices paid by Americans!
Iran war escalates BIGLY
Lots and lots of stories and some good videos of the hyuugely (as the Donald would say) escalated action in the Trump-Iran War follow. I will cover them tomorrow or in my weekend Deeper Dive since this post is long enough already, but let me just touch on one of the lighter notes:
The president flaunted his naiveté today asking
When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?
Are you kidding? This shows how badly you, Mr. president (and most previous US presidents), just don’t get it! Did you not see the funeral for the ayatollah you killed? Millions attended, and half or more probably hate him; but what the funeral revealed is that they hate YOU a lot more, given their burning effigies and signs and chants. They also know you will not send the cavalry to their rescue if the more hardline regime arrests them to execute them. They know you will TACO on them BECAUSE YOU ALMOST ALWAYS DO, just as it appears you did today when Iran says it retaliated “bigger than ever before” after you told them that, should they retaliate, you would blow them up bigger than ever before. This evening … silence so far.
This is what tends to happen when the US arrives as the “Great Liberator,” as GBII liked to say during his Iraq and Afghanistan “100-day” quagmires. It’s what happens when you blow gaping holes in many of their favorite buildings, knock out their bridges and railroads, pound their economy into the desert dust, sanction all the people to death, regularly threaten to remove them from Earth’s future and (most off all) kill many of their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, such as happened at a wedding party last night that was hit by US missiles or bombs. They tend to not love your “liberation” as much as they loved the loved ones you killed.
So, dream on, Donald. They are not rising up, unless against you.
