Special Operation, er, War, Update

Two points and a PS.

Point #1.

I hate to even link to a picture of this guy’s posts, but it’s critical to my point:

Let me emphasize what Trump wrote: “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the world, by far, so when prices go up, we make money.”

I want to buttress the point Mrs. Betty Bowers made. The “United States” does not produce one drop of oil; large public corporations and smaller private companies do. “We” - as in the United States - only benefit from higher prices with royalties (taxes) on oil extracted on public lands paid by the companies that extract oil from the ground. An estimated 25% of oil is extracted from public lands/waters. The federal royalty rate ranges from 12.5% to 16.67% depending on when a federal lease was signed. And of that royalty rate, roughly 40% goes to the federal government with the rest going to the states. So the feds get between 5% - 6.67% in taxes from federal land oil. Who really makes money? Corporations and their C-Suite execs, who then turn around and donate millions to Trump and Republicans.

And, to repeat, consumers get screwed because no matter how much oil is produced by companies in the United States, we are all still going to pay the going world price, which includes the price of a f*^king war in the Middle East.

Point #2.

Unless I’m missing something, Trump, Hegseth and their fellow warmongers have backed themselves into a corner. With the Strait of Hormuz closed and bottling up roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply and Iran still shipping its own oil safely through the Strait, it seems as if these bozos have two options:

1. Let Iran keep doing what it’s doing (shipping its own oil through the Strait while stopping everyone else from doing so) so as not to disrupt the oil markets and world economy any further, or

2. Obliterate Iran’s oil fields, processing and shipping facilities to stop Iran from benefiting from the conditions in the Strait and from realizing higher revenues from increased oil prices (which also benefits Russia, by incredible coincidence).

What a bunch of dumbasses.

Help me understand what I am missing here.

Finally, a PS - I agree with the Bluesky poster that this video is something else:

The text reads: “Oil tanker on Fire: rescue operation in progress” while Trump dances in front of maybe 500 people at a lame rally in Kentucky.