Wednesday, January 14, 2026

These Are The Times That Try Men’s Soles

He means like this: I feel full just looking at it. Now I feel sick. 🤢  $500 million? From one tanker? A VLCC carries about 2 million barrels. Even at $50 bbl (Venezuelan crude sells for $38-40), that would only be $100 million per tanker. Reports are the U.S. has seized five tankers, one which was known to be empty.  So at the top price for sweet light (VZ is heavy sour), those tankers can only be worth $400 million total; and more likely only $300 million or so.

$500 million? From one tanker? Trumpflation. And in the federal budget? That’s not even a rounding error. And a drop in the international oil market bucket. (It’s next to the tariff shelf.)

Let’s be clear. I could certainly be way off. But Trump certainly is way off. 
Mostly just to point out $30 billion >$500 million.

And why should we believe this Administration? Well, there was another ICE shooting in Minneapolis.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that a Venezuelan immigrant was shot in the leg after "violently" resisting arrest during a "targeted" traffic stop. DHS said the man fled the scene in his car, crashed into a parked vehicle, and took off on foot.
How convenient Washington has such complete information so quickly. And how convenient it’s a “Venezuelan drug dealer” who was shot, in a “targeted traffic stop,” rather than a random white person in a ICE traffic jam, this time.
Jacob Frey: "This is not sustainable. This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in, and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbors, to maintain order. We're in a position right now where we have residents that are asking the very limited number of police officers to fight ICE agents on the street, to stand by their neighbors. We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental agencies that are literally fighting one another. We are put in this position because we have approximately 600 police officers in Minneapolis -- far fewer that are able to work at any given time. And there are approximately 3,000 ICE agents in the area."
Government so small you can drown it in a bathtub, and all that. ICE desperately needs those 10,000 extra agents.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz: "What's happening in Minnesota right now defies belief. News reports simply don't do justice to the level of chaos and disruption and trauma the federal government is raining down upon our communities. They're pulling over people indiscriminately, including US citizens, and demanding to see their papers. At grocery stores, at bus stops, even at our schools, they're breaking windows, dragging pregnant women down the street, just plain grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked vans. Kidnapping innocent people with no warning and no due process. Let's be very, very clear. This long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government. This week, he went online to promise that 'the day of retribution and reckoning is coming.' That's a direct threat against the people of this state who dared to vote against him three times and who continue to stand up for freedom with courage and empathy and profound grace."
47 days, by last report. You get what you train for.
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3 comments:

  1. The Thought Criminal2:12 AM

    California, Illinois, Minnesota, I wonder if anyone else has noticed that Trump has targeted states with white male governors who could run for president next year.
    This is like the civil war except it us the federal government that is firing on cities instead of some state firing on a fort.
    The Constitution is useless, made useless by Republicans in Congress and on the Supreme Court. It needs to be torn up and rewritten when they are deposed, if that ever happens. I hate to say it but it's time for democracy favoring states to give the same ultimatum that Georgia and South Carolina made to the other eleven, either democracy of we're gone.

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  2. jim, some guy in iowa11:35 AM

    I'm not very optimistic junking the Constitution and starting over would result in something better. Aside from that, once we get to where a significant number of people in power have chosen to act as if "rule of law" means nothing more than "I have the power I am the law" the wording in the documents doesn't matter. It's just pretty words on fancy paper under glass.

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  3. Rmj6:08 PM

    This is where I remember that any equal protection under law was fought for in every meaning of that term. The rights we think are guaranteed to us by the Constitution didn’t meaningfully restrict state governments until the Supreme Court (using their authority partially codified by Marbury) to apply the Bill of Rights to the “sovereign” states through the 14th Amendment. Which became law itself, along with the 13th (ending slavery throughout the country) and 15th (establishing voting rights throughout the country, though that’s been more honored in the breach than in the keeping). Then women’s suffrage (Constitution); labor rights (federal laws); civil rights (federal law); voting rights for 18 and up (Constitution). This fight’s been going on since the Constitution was ratified. It’s all just a matter of whose ox is being gored now, and what we, the people, are going to do about it.

    The people of Minneapolis are putting on a pretty good object lesson in democracy right now, IMHO.

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