Citing solid economic expansion but low job gains and 'somewhat' elevated inflation, the Federal Open Market Committee left the Federal Reserve's interest rates unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75%. Chairman Jerome Powell (above) voted with 10 FOMC members to leave the rates unchanged, while President Trump's latest appointee, Stephen Miran, preferred lowering the target rate by a quarter-point. [From Federal Reserve video]

THURSDAY 3/19/26

UPDATE: The Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in funding for the war in Iran, The New York Times reports, citing an administration official and a military official. The request was sent to the White House, the military official told the newspaper, which would review it before formally submitting it to Congress. If passed, the requested amount would equal about 24% of the military budget for the entire fiscal year.

This War Goes to 11 – The US-Israeli war on Iran is different from previous US operations in the Middle East, War/Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a press conference Thursday morning. Iran, he said, cannot be trusted to abandon its nuclear arms program on its own, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“We will finish this,” Hegseth promised. 

“Our objectives given directly from our America-first president remain exactly what they were on Day One,” he said, without offering any more insight than what the rest of the country understood on Day One.

We can infer from Hegseth’s comments that the war, now in its third week, will not end after three or four weeks as President Trump indicated on Day One unless Iran stops fighting back. On Wednesday, Israel struck the “crown jewel” of Iran’s energy industry (which means it’s not just for Iran but to be sold to much of the rest of the world) which, inconveniently is shared with US ally Qatar. The South Pars gas field is “by far the largest in the world,” says the WSJ.

Iran retaliated, the WSJ continues, with two attacks on a major gas hub in Qatar, across the Gulf. Iran also fired at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with debris landing nearby. 

Meanwhile, Hegseth said the US has sunk more than 120 Iranian warships and struck more than 7,000 targets across Iran. A-10 attack planes and Apache attack helicopters are striking targets on Iran’s south flank, he said. 

Iran’s military has warned that targeting its infrastructure (still the WSJ) is a “major mistake.” Meanwhile, Hezbollah fired long-range missiles south into Israel.

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Dinosaurs’ Revenge – Brent crude oil surged overnight to $113 per barrel, from about $103 per barrel, APR’s Marketplace reports.

March 19 AAA National Average Unleaded Regular: $3.884 per gallon, +6 cents over Wednesday and +90.2 cents over February 27. Diesel: $5.099 per gallon, up 3.1 cents over Wednesday and up $1.342 over February 27. –TL

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Venezuela for 51^st? – Step aside, Greenland and Canada. After Venezuela’s 3-2 win over the United States team Tuesday in the World Baseball Classic at Loan Depot Park in Miami, this popped up on Truth Social, according to The Guardian: “STATEHOOD!!! President DJT.”

President Trump’s sentiment apparently was buoyed over Venezuela’s enthusiasm for baseball, the nation’s most popular sport according to the Miami Herald and the administration’s quick, clean attack in which the US Military extracted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Lest you think Trump’s Tuesday post was too subtle or vague, let’s go back to his post Monday following Venezuela’s 4-2 win over Italy in a semifinal game: “Good things are happening in Venezuela lately! I wonder what the magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?”

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Counterterrorism Chief Quits Over Iran – National Counterterrorism Center Director Joseph Kent stepped down over the Trump administration’s war on Iran Tuesday with a tweet that shook Washington and MAGA World.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent posted on X-Twitter. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Kent has been a Trump true-believer whose split from the president on the US-Israeli war on Iran is yet another example of the schism led by the likes of former Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Green (R-GA), former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other America First absolutists.

“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran,” Kent’s tweet continued. “This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.”

In his formal resignation letter, Kent, a Gold Star husband, wrote about his “beloved wife,” Navy Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, who was killed in January 2019 by a suicide bomber in Syria, The New York Times reports. Shannon Kent, who was 35, had been assigned as a Navy linguist to a unit that supports the National Security Agency and military special operations forces. 

Trump’s nomination … The president nominated Kent, “a 2020 election conspiracy theorist with links to the Proud Boys and white supremacists” according to The Atlantic Daily, to be director of the National Counterterrorism Center in February 2025.

Kent served as an aide to National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard until the Senate confirmed him to the counterterrorism job last July by 52-44 vote along party lines. 

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called Kent “patently unqualified” in voting against him, according to the Washington State Standard.

“It is sober, serious work that requires a level head and a commitment to putting the mission before politics,” Murray said, adding she was “deeply concerned” Republicans would put the Counterterrorism Center “under the thumb of a conspiracy theorist who espouses white supremacist views.”

Trump’s reaction … “I always thought he was weak on security,” the president said in reaction to Kent’s very public resignation (per Newsweek). “It’s a good thing that he’s out.” Trump said he does not want people who do not think Iran is a threat.

“They’re not smart people, or they’re not savvy people. Iran was a tremendous threat.” 

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CORRECTION: We miscalculated the price increase for a gallon of automotive diesel fuel since before the US-Israeli war on Iran, as calculated by the AAA, in Wednesday’s front page. Diesel was up $1.311 per gallon from February 27 to March 18.

AAA National Average Unleaded Regular: $3.824 per gallon, +3.4 cents over Tuesday and +84.2 cents over February 27. Diesel:$5.068 per gallon, up 2.4 cents over Tuesday and up $1.811 over February 27. –TL

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TUESDAY 3/17/26

IDF Assassinates Iran’s Military Leaders – Israeli Defense Forces assassinated Iran’s head of the National Security Council in a Tehran safe house, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed Tuesday, according to Haaretz. 

“I have just been updated by the IDF chief that (Ali) Larijani and the head of the Basij were killed overnight and have joined Khamenei, the architect of the destruction program, and all the eliminated ‘Axis of Evil’ in the depths of hell,” Katz said. 

Also killed by the IDF were Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij, and his deputy, Rassem Qureshi, in Tehran. 

Apparently trying to dispute Katz’s statements, Iran’s official media said a statement from Larijani soon would be released.

Trump’s test … Meanwhile, President Trump has demanded seven countries provide warships to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Germany, the UK and pretty much the rest of Western Europe have refused, NPR’s Frank Ordoñez reports Tuesday on Morning Edition. Euro leaders say the war on Iran is not their war.

That did not sit well with the president.

“Because my attitude is, we don’t need anybody,” he told reporters at the White House Monday. “We’re the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need them. But it’s interesting. I’m almost doing it not because we need them but because I want to find out how they react.”

Prelude to pull the US out of NATO?

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AAA National Average Unleaded Regular: $3.79 per gallon. Diesel: $5.044 per gallon. Up 80.8 cents and $1.787 respectively, since February 27.

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I’ll Take Cuba – Why not? Cuba has been a thorn in the sides of American presidents since the late-Eisenhower administration, while Iran goes back only to President Carter (though Ike also is credited for the CIA-assisted overthrow of Iran’s last democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installation of the Shah of Iran in 1953). 

Now President Trump, seeing an opening for another takeover, indicated in his Oval Office press scrum Monday that after the invasion of Venezuela and while the Iranian war rages on, it may be time for the Western Hemisphere communist holdout of the Soviet era. 

“I think Cuba sees the end,” Trump said. “All my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I’ll be the honor of – having the honor of taking Cuba.”

A US “blockade” of oil tankers from Venezuela is hampering Cuba’s efforts to grapple with the island nation’s energy crisis, rare violent protests and pressure from the Trump administration, NBC News reports. Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga told NBC’s George Solis Monday his country is negotiating with the US to allow the Cuban diaspora, especially in Miami – just 229 miles north of Havana -- to invest in Cuba’s private sector and own businesses in their homeland.  –TL

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MONDAY 3/16/26

Trump Strongarms NATO on Straits – President Trump said in an eight-minute interview with the Financial Times Sunday that NATO – and China -- must help reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure their own energy security. 

“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the newspaper. Europe and China depend heavily on the Strait for oil, he said, not the US.

But Iran’s choking of the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through, has sent global oil prices skyrocketing. They hovered in the $103-106 per barrel range Monday. 

The president called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom to join a “team effort” to reopen the Strait and suggested a planned late March summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping would be called off or delayed.

“If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response” to Trump’s comments to the FT, “I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”

FCC threat … This came after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who last year managed to get Jimmy Kimmel Live! suspended briefly, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses because of what he called “liberal bias” in their coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran. 

And this in turn followed War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s objections to reports that the Trump administration was not prepared for Iran playing the card it can easily play, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. With the result that global oil prices skyrocket.

"CNN is Lying to Undermine Operation Epic Fury's Crushing Success," reads a headline from the White House official website.

Hegseth says he believes “liberal” media want the US – the Trump administration – to fail in the war.

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest,” Carr said last weekend, according to The New York Times. Carr’s warning comes after Trump Truth Socialed his objections to a Wall Street Journal headline that Iran hit US Air Force refueling planes at the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. 

The Wall Street Journal’s headline: “Five Air Force Refueling Planes Hit in Iranian Strike on Saudi Arabia.”

The story says an official told the newspaper the airplanes were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired. No one was killed in the attack.

Gas and diesel … AAA reports Monday the national average for unleaded regular is $3.718 per gallon, up 73.6-cents since the Friday before the US and Israel launched the war on Iran, while diesel fuel is $4.988 per gallon, up $1.231.

Notable quote … In his acceptance speech as writer and co-director of the Academy Award winner for documentary feature Sunday night, David Borenstein said, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin is about how you lose your country. What we saw when working with the footage is that you lose it through countless small little acts of complicity. When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of major cities. When we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it.” –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 3/16/26