Locator: 50681B.
WAR POWERS ACT: link here.
Hegseth: with regard to Congressional "war crimes" testimony, I'm only unhappy with one aspect of Hegseth's testimony: his failure to utter in reply with one word: Auschwitz.
Iran: new proposal from Iran has been delivered to Pakistan. Tea leaves: another day or two of this bullshit and Trump will ask Iran: Why are you going to/through Pakistan? I'm a phone call away. This is getting tedious." Actually, perhaps even better for Iran? Go through Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer in Washington, DC. Both are just down the street from the White House.
Sandisk: a huge traditional hedge fund has just raised Sandisk's price target from $1,000 to $2,000. This will raise all memory boats.
Mythos: Pentagon CTO confirms Anthropic is still blacklisted, but says Mythos is a “separate national security moment." Exactly what that means is anybody's guess but if you have three guesses, the first two won't count.
CAT: Barron's -- CAT can rise another 30%. Holy mackerel. I'll be happy with another 25%.
Get the map out: new pipeline to bypass the strait.
Iraq has begun constructing a ~ 420-mile, 2.25–2.5 million bpd pipeline from Basra to Haditha (Anbar province) to diversify export routes and bypass the high-risk Strait of Hormuz. From Haditha, the oil is planned to be transported to Jordan’s Aqaba port, Syria’s Baniyas port, and Türkiye’s Ceyhan port, while also supplying domestic refineries.
Venezuela: getting more and more headlines.
- Two headlines:
- Venezuela will drop out of OPEC+; and,
- US oil companies now en masse looking at Venezuela
- tea leaves: the Iranian blockade and a "Manhattan-Project-style" initiative to open Venezuela will be the one-two punch to make the Mideast irrelevant.
Pemex: reported a $2.6 billion loss for Q1 2026, despite oil prices nearing $100 /bbl due to global conflict. High debt ($79 billion), increased operating costs, foreign exchange losses, and lower export volumes drove the loss. The results highlight how financial burdens can offset high oil prices.
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Apple
This was a record for this quarter; and, even more significantly, there have only been three quarters in the history of AAPL that earnings have been higher (need to confirm; could be four quarters -- doesn't matter -- the point is -- one of the historical slowest quarters in the Apple full fiscal year beat out almost every Christmas quarter in the history of Apple. Not trivial.
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The Book Page
