NEWS: Bette Midler just released a remake of Woody Guthrie’s classic protest song “All You Fascists Bound to Lose,” updated to fit the current moment and urge action ahead of the midterms.
You have to listen to this.
No birth certificate? No passport? No problem—you’re registered for the DRAFT.
But to register to VOTE? The SAVE Act says show your papers first.
They’ll send you to war without ID but won’t let you vote without one. WTH!
#NoPayToVoteSaveAct
JUST IN: Maersk has 10 container ships trapped inside the Persian Gulf. They cannot get out. Their CEO says it will take a week to ten days to resume operations after a ceasefire. There is no ceasefire. There are mines in the water, 31 autonomous commands firing without permission, and a Supreme Leader made of cardboard.
But the ships trapped inside the Gulf are not the crisis. The crisis is the ships running out of fuel outside it.
Maersk suspended its FM1 and ME11 services connecting the Middle East to Asia and Europe. Vessels that would normally transit Hormuz are rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10 to 14 days per voyage. That reroute burns fuel that was budgeted for the original route. The ships arriving in Asia are arriving late and arriving empty, because the containers they were supposed to carry are sitting in Gulf ports that cannot load them through a strait that is 97% closed.
Maersk is not alone inside the trap. Alphaliner counted 138 container ships stranded as of 2 March. Xeneta counted 147 by 6 March. Clarksons Research reported 3,200 ships idle in the Gulf by 4 March with another 500 waiting outside. The trapped capacity: 470,000 TEUs. That is not a shipping disruption. That is 10% of the global container fleet removed from circulation in eleven days.
The Red Sea Houthi crisis of 2023 to 2025 reduced Gulf of Aden traffic by 70% and doubled freight rates. It lasted over two years. The market absorbed it because the Red Sea is bypassable: the Cape route adds distance but the oil does not transit through the Red Sea chokepoint. Hormuz is structurally different. Twenty percent of global oil and the entirety of Qatar’s LNG exports transit through a corridor 33 kilometres wide that sits directly adjacent to Iran’s coastline. The Saudi East-West pipeline can divert 2.4 million barrels per day to the Red Sea via Yanbu. Saudi exports through Hormuz run at 6 million. The pipeline covers 40% of Saudi volume. The other 60% has nowhere to go.
Maersk imposed emergency surcharges on 4 March: $1,800 per 20-foot dry container, $3,000 per 40-foot, $3,800 per reefer. CMA CGM added $3,000 per FEU to Gulf-bound cargo. MSC added $800 per TEU. Insurance premiums surged 300%. These surcharges do not cover losses. They signal to customers that the cost of moving goods through or around the Gulf has entered territory that reprices every supply chain on Earth.
The downstream is already visible. Semiconductor shipments from Asian fabs to Gulf assembly points are delayed. Electronics prices face 20 to 30% inflation. Fertiliser from Qatar is offline, hitting India’s March planting window. Manufactured goods from China to Europe via Suez face congestion as Cape-rerouted vessels compete for berths that were sized for direct-transit schedules. Air freight rates have surged 3 to 15% as shippers pay emergency premiums to bypass the ocean entirely.
The W Kithira sits anchored. The Maersk Baltimore sits anchored. The Seaspan Jakarta waits to enter a Gulf it cannot reach. The Maersk Atlanta has diverted. Ten ships with names. Thousands more without headlines. And the fuel that was supposed to power the reroutes is running short because the war that trapped the ships also closed the refinery that was supposed to supply the bunkers.
The strait is 33 kilometres wide. The supply chain it governs is global. And every day it stays closed, the cost compounds not in barrels but in containers that are not moving, factories that are not producing, and shelves that are not restocking.
Full analysis below!
https://t.co/eMrt5qYqCV
Trump: "With that being said, you can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns. You just can't. You can't walk in with guns. You can't do that. But it's just a very unfortunate incident."
Trump: "With that being said, you can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns. You just can't. You can't walk in with guns. You can't do that. But it's just a very unfortunate incident."
If you didn't think Trump was a rapist, what do you call someone who won't take no for an answer, doesn't recognize your right to decide and threatens force if you don't give in???