AJ notes that Qatar LNG facilities are now shut down as a result of Iranian counterattack risks. Europe and China will likely see prices raise. India's market, and other consumers are likely to also suffer worldwide fossil fuel price hikes of some degree..

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/2/qatarenergy-worlds-largest-lng-firm-halts-production-after-iran-attacks 

EmptyWheel has some discussion of possible negotiator conflicted interests in the negotiations the US had with Iran prior to the decision to go to war. Speculation about Iranian world gas reserves, and the current market situation are a part of that post and commentary. And it all is guesswork. Inferences, about possibilities. Hard evidence might be hard to come by.

 See, also: https://www.qatarenergy.qa/en/MediaCenter/Pages/newsdetails.aspx?ItemId=3892  and- https://energy-oil-gas.com/news/us-lng-exports-outpace-qatar-in-landmark-year-for-natural-gas/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas 

Fat city, for US fossil fuel firms. Trump presumably would not be troubled by such an outcome, short term, mid term, long term. And what of potential investors, if any, having advanced insider knowledge of the Israeli-US war initiation timing? What they, if any, might have been expected by you to have done, in energy markets?

As earlier noted, hard evidence might exist, but it would be hard to unearth. 

Reuters. 

Expect US pump prices to show an effect.

____________UPDATE____________

One firm: https://www.reuters.com/company/venture-global-inc/ 

 There are several recent (this year, so far) items there, and beyond that, what do I know? Beyond:

Commercial activity in the sector has gained further momentum after U.S. President Donald Trump lifted a moratorium on new LNG export permits after taking office last year. 

 That fact flew under Crabgrass attention levels until now. Yours too?

The potential profitable avenues of those making good bets, or having insider knowledge of ongoing Israel-US planning leading to the strikes, are staggering.

Who knew?

FURTHER: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/04/venture-global-shares 

That item is dated Dec. 4, 2025. So, how long were Bibi and Trump - their people - talking in secret of plans for this now-upon-us Iran war? Who knew? A mere three months ago, until today.

And that's just  one fairly new public firm, with its IPO traceable, and with SEC filings.

Not that I'd care. Somebody might. 

FURTHER: Supply and Demand, per the Crabgrass Econ 101 understandings, is that if you take US gas out of the US as LNG, then the demand, worldwide, goes up, and a new price balance point is reached, where we consumer - citizen - voters in the US pay more to heat our homes. That means Trump and his people have the billionaire energy industry players more in mind, than us. We should vote our best interests, shouldn't we? Prove me wrong. LNG is capital intensive, not labor intensive, so, job growth might be minimal. Exact economics are for Congress persons to figure out, because staff people on Capitol Hill are brighter and have more at stake, than me.

Especially the Democrats. Who are still processing being at war with Iran, and all of the implications. And there are mere months until the next election, so hope they work fast and in our interests. 

Who, stateside, has uncontracted excess LNG capacity, ready to meet current and near term demand, with Qatar paused? 

FURTHER: Again, what do I know? For the hell of it, two or three nations, what/where are they?

try search = "Singapore LNG" or "Ireland LNG" or "Norway LNG". 

Just a stab in the dark. Are they even players? They are further shipping points from Qatar large scale LNG shipping compared to Mediterranean nations, but, again, what do I know? Qatar might not ship through Suez as much as open ocean. 

I do not know the LNG market details, pricing, supply and demand. But this war does tug along a few profit and loss dimensions. Which I can only guess at.

Others know. In upcoming days we may hear more. 

If regime change does somehow happen in Iran, all is on the table. They've got gas reserves out of the wazzoo, but appear to not be current big LNG players. Ripe for plucking. LNG is capital intensive. Sharks smell blood at a distance.

FURTHER: America First. That's a slogan, not a fact-intensive thing. Simply for example, the America of paycheck-to-paycheck people Bernie cares about, heating their homes in the winter with natural gas, whatever it costs, or another America to be First; the oligarch class that Bernie and AOC toured to warn us about? Which, for Trump, is First. And how distant is second? Way back there?

The paycheck-to-paycheck America cannot give Trump piles of money. That might be a factor at play.  What would Smedley Butler say?

 

Alternative SOTU versions - Bernie, short + Heather Cox Richardson 50min

 Bernie = 1.25 M views

HCR = 884 K views

There is variety, but more truth than Trump's BS.

The viewing numbers are as of the timestamp of this post.

 

 

EmptyWheel reviews how the siege of Minnesota was a giant federal clusterfuck, but it also was one extremely traumatic and costly to the affected population.

 The priorities were to intimidate, rather than to do regular or useful business:

https://emptywheel.net/katie-britts-sad-confusion-about-and-complicit-in-misallocation-of-hsi/ 

With Pritzker having sent Trump a bill for the mayhem costs Illinois/Chicago citizens were subjected to, we await the Minnesota invoice for compensation, or for lawsuit damages, whichever. The siege's litigation will continue into and well past the November 2026 election season. May it have a giant weight in a Democratic Blue Wave. And may the federal murderers of Renee Good and Alex Pritti be held to punishment for their crimes, as may be proven in Minnesota courts, under Minnesota law. Those prosecutions should be done. And they will be done. DHS and FBI cooperation or not, the perps will face prosecutions.

(Is there a betting market on those perps facing Minnesota State justice?) 

 

Trump gave a speech yesterday evening. Big fucking deal. His poll ratings tell a better story than anything he could say. And the speech probably was written by Stephen Miller. Delivered via paired teleprompters. Irritating and a Biden-blaming thing, I'd guess.

 I did not watch it. Wise choice I'd guess. Bloviating and in that irritating style that is Trump's. If JD had delivered it it likely would have come across as less offensive. Less dreadfully tedious.

But having not watched it, a likely somewhat biased review is online, by GOP blogger Gary Gross. I link to that, with the opinion Gary is a nice enough guy, but he's dead wrong about something I did not think worth watching:

https://libertyprosperityblog.blogspot.com/2026/02/donald-trumps-triumphant-speech.html 

Gary highlighted it had its blame-Biden dimension. He excerpted in larger print a quote of a speech segment, that of all things, started by blaming Biden then indulging in falsehoods or partial truths while citizens pay exorbitant tariff pass-throughs and are getting soaked by outrageously inflation-tainted supermarket prices they struggle to afford. If you agree with Gary, that's how politics gets parsed. If you did not watch it, you are with me and Robert Reich.

I am not bothering to find any online critical review. I presume some have been published and that readers can find one agreeing with whatever view they hold. 

My bet, the poll numbers stay under water and "the Peace President" gets us mired into something with Iran because Bibi told him what he should do and Putin agreed. 

________________UPDATE______________ 

It was longer than any previous SOTU, The Independent covered the event.

Anonymous Republican insiders started talking to a variety of sources after the speech had concluded. Although they insisted that it was a rousing, successful address to their sources — and Trump certainly did look healthier and sound more forceful than he has done in weeks — they also said they’d ideally have wanted some specifics about how he’s actually planning to improve the economy as it relates to normal people.

Even the MAGA faithful were muted for MAGA faithfuls. Kevin McCarthy tweeted about “America’s greatness” as shown by “war heroes” and Olympic champions”. Fox News claimed the president had left “Democrats seething”, with no actual examples. Chip Roy, bless his heart, called it a “home run”. Those boilerplate reactions really show how little the president gave them to work with: few specifics as they relate to voters, no new attack lines that are landing reliably. Others stuck to generic lines — a “bold vision” laid out for the future, “dominance” for America, and all that jazz — before pivoting into talking about their own agendas.

There was no takeaway line for the party to rally around. As the confetti settled, it became clear that Republicans had done their duty and little more.

Absolutely no one was expecting this State of the Union speech to be normal. What we underestimated was how weird that would become in a midterm year when his approval rating looks increasingly shaky. Trump now looks both out-of-touch and boring: two fatal political flaws for a man whose strength is wresting control of the attention economy and claiming he’s looking out for the people outside the swamp.

Further Independent coverage, here and here. There was that one quoted early coverage sentence saying Trump looked in better health than at other recent times, i.e., the dementia guesses could be wrong. We should hope so. Dementia is not something one would wish on a worse enemy. Age takes a toll, but many die still cogent, and we all hope that will be our personal ending.

_______________FURTHER UPDATE_______________

NBC coverage, saying in part:

On Tuesday, it was one thumb in the eye of Trump after another. More than a dozen House Democrats invited survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to be their guests, centering on a topic Trump has been loath to speak about and has explicitly asked the country to move on from.

"How about those Epstein files?" Tlaib yelled at Trump during his speech.

Other Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, wore pins calling on the Trump administration to release all of the files.

And as Trump delivered a speech of record-breaking length, the Democratic gallery was partially empty. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers attended or spoke at alternative events

FURTHER: FOX gave a positive spin, noting the USA Olympic men's hockey team was there. See, however,  https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2026/02/23/usa-womens-hockey-declines-invitation-state-of-the-union/88828973007/

Both teams won gold. 

FURTHER: Gary posted this AP link to the full transcript of what Trump said.

Specific words which are absent-from-the-transcript words: elon miller bondi epstein files renee alex pretti investigation putin netanyahu bibi refugee crypto pardon(s) underage pedophile pedophilia survivor(s) = do the word search, each word, if you doubt. Those are words which will not go away, but words he might have choked on. The word "good" was used, but not as a proper noun, a person's name, dead or alive.

 

PIG - If you decline to be a part of the solution, at least show the decency to not be a key contributing part of the problem.

MSN carries an [unpaywalled] item originally published today [paywalled] by Minnesota's Star Tribune. The item unkindly but aptly calls out MN CD6's delinquent Rep. Tom Emmer's counterproductive decision making during the siege:

oink

Emmer could’ve helped end Operation Metro Surge. He fanned the flames instead.

Story by Rochelle Olson, Star Tribune

As Minnesotans endured weeks of brutal, chaotic federal immigration enforcement, Minneapolis Foundation CEO R.T. Rybak was a vocal and consistent cheerleader for everyone trying to protect their neighbors. 

 [...] He closed by calling out Republican U.S. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota‘s Sixth District, saying that Emmer alone could end the incursion by talking to President Donald Trump.

“If he simply said this is wrong,” Rybak wrote, and if Emmer “simply stood up for people he represents and [said] they should not be treated differently because of their state, this would end tomorrow.”

[...] Emmer, a lawyer, had been fueling the fire for weeks, spreading misinformation, fanning division and fear among residents, and vilifying the state leaders who were working night and day to keep the peace.

I’d like to ask Emmer how it is that he, as someone sworn to uphold the Constitution, could support the smothering, heavy-handed approach to immigration we saw here.

Simple answer. He did it because he's an asshole.

The item continues:

Despite being in Congress since 2015, Emmer runs and hides from challenging and uncomfortable questions with mainstream news organizations.

Absent an interview, I turned to Emmer’s social media posts to understand his thinking these past few weeks. I’ll give him credit for consistency. He kept up a steady stream of invective to stir the boiling pot without regard for who was getting burned.

Since Renee Good was shot by a federal agent in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7, through the shooting of Alex Pretti on Jan. 24 and until the Trump administration’s announcement of the drawdown earlier this month, Emmer has blamed and trolled Democrats.

He did not raise concerns about the flood of ill-trained, trigger-happy federal agents on the streets or probe the false pretext behind Trump’s siege of this state.

On Jan. 12, Emmer verbally attacked Attorney General Keith Ellison as a “sorry excuse for an attorney general” because he had filed a lawsuit seeking to get the agents out of Minnesota and curb the siege.

The next day, Emmer roasted “so-called leaders, like Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Mayor Jacob Frey, [who] would rather go to war with the Trump administration than get criminal illegal aliens out of our communities and expose the fraud that’s been allowed to run rampant on their watch.”

That sure does help the situation, doesn't it? Frey said to ICE, "Get the fuck out of Minneapolis," and Emmer lacks the minimal sense to have said, "Right on, bro!" Instead he dumps, making things worse. Because he's an Emmer. I did say that already, didn't I? The item continues:

Walz issued a direct plea to Trump on Jan. 15, asking the president to stop the retribution campaign.

In a hopeful sign, Walz spoke privately with Trump on Jan. 27. Emmer wasn’t ready to play anything close to nice. He went on Fox News the same day and falsely accused the governor and Frey of “fomenting all of this nasty rhetoric and frankly inviting these organized protesters and agitators into our state and causing all of this violence and destruction.”

[,,,] Emmer pushed it much too far by seeking arrests on fuzzy, bizarre allegations of illegalities that aren’t supported by facts. Emmer suggested that Walz not only should resign, a prospect the governor is not entertaining, but should leave office in handcuffs and that Ellison should be disbarred, kicked out of office and indicted.

Asshole! 

At least Emmer didn’t pretend to be on a quest for the common good. He’s a bully who wants to divide, conquer and gain a personal political advantage for his side.

When he played college hockey I bet he was a big time quentisential  "hocky goon."  Showing that kind of personality all the way to Congress and party whip. Baked into the DNA. Shown regularly. A crypto booster, like Trump is.

But I digress. The item continues: 

[...] His fortunes may not rise, or potentially fall, with Trump, but it’s clear he’s willing to take whatever positions are necessary to stay in favor without regard to how they play in Minnesota.

Consider Emmer’s pettiness before the men’s U.S. Olympic hockey team gold medal game against Canada early Sunday. As Minnesotans settled in at their early-morning watch parties, Emmer proposed a deal to Canada: “We win, you become the 51st state. You win, we give you Timmie Walz.”

I did say asshole. I meant to. The item continues: 

[...] Was Rybak’s proposition true? Could Emmer have single-handedly ended the siege by talking to Trump?

We can’t say for certain, but what we do know is that when Minnesota was down and needed his help, Emmer was focused only on his political future.

Minnesota Dems will be caucusing this week to endorse a successor to Emmer, so stay tuned. 

The item ends:

He kept his back turned to Minnesota to maintain his A-plus grade with the president, the audience of one whose favor matters most to the congressman.

And he doesn't hold any in-person in-district townhalls anymore. Or too few. Either he's fearful or he's smug that way.

I did say asshole, didn't I? I meant to. I really did. I also said a Dem successorship will be on the ballot this coming November. Or I meant to. 

MN CD6. Vote the rascal out. Sucking up to Trump's vanity is his MO, damn the rest. And that's a hell of a well written editorial about playing shabby politics instead of helping the State and the district. The editorial, deserves being unpaywalled. It is better than anything I could have written. But we build standing on the shoulders of others.

_____________UPDATE____________

Emmer is also allied with Stauber in an effort to force sulfide mining in northern Minnesota where pristine waters are at great risk of irreparable harm. He also is a climate science denier. That's as bad a record on environmental issues as is possible. He relishes it. No shame. Keeping his back turned to sane land management.

Marco's Munich speech dragged over the rocks in a tightly arranged video posted by Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel..

https://emptywheel.net/project/marco-rubio-tries-to-tell-europe-hes-not-the-grandson-of-an-illegal-immigrant/

 

MinnReformer: Actions of ICE in Minnesota via data charts

 https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/02/23/the-end-of-operation-metro-surge-in-data/