The Elitist Media seem to have a problem on their hands. Their non-coverage of an ongoing DHS shutdown, forced by Democrats wanting to change ICE policy, has been severely complicated by virtue of current events.  Watch as ABC World News Tonight manages a full report on the ongoing shutdown-induced travel delays, without ever mentioning the reason behind the shutdown: WATCH: @ABCWorldNews manages a report on the ongoing travel delays and DHS shutdown as if they spontaneously occurred, without ever mentioning WHY there is a shutdown in the first place. pic.twitter.com/bV3ogtzHDV — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 10, 2026 DAVID MUIR: Now to the travel chaos at many American airports, TSA checkpoints, the long lines- this partial government shutdown dragging on and TSA agents haven’tt had a full paycheck in weeks. Here's Gio Benitez with the pictures. GIO BENITEZ: Tonight, missed flights and ruined vacations as TSA staffing shortages throw Spring Break travel into chaos. Airports packed from Miami to Phoenix to Houston’s Hobby Airport, where even seasoned travelers like Claire Lee were shocked by the crowds this morning. CLAIRE LEE: First time ever, and I travel the world. I’ve never seen anything like this. BENITEZ: Officials telling passengers to arrive five hours early. TRAVELER: Usually I witness this on TV, watching it. Now I'm part of it. BENITEZ: At Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans, passengers started lining right up by their cars in the parking garage. The TSA, short staffed amid a government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security. And because of that shutdown, roughly 60,000 TSA officers, who get you through security, haven’t gotten a full paycheck in almost a month and many are not showing up to work. AARON BARKER: To not have your full entire paycheck come through, that puts a strain on finances for your household so they are having to make very tough decisions. BENITEZ: And David, so far airports like Newark have been faring better but there’s a real concern here about lines the longer this shutdown goes on. David. MUIR: Gio Benitez reporting tonight. Gio, thank you. Unreal but ABC seems hell-bent on playing Hide-the-Shutdown here. While acknowledging the existence of a shutdown, there is no mention of a reason why it happened, who instigated it, or what it may take from Congress to bring the shutdown to an end. Viewers are left to believe that this shutdown just occurred spontaneously. The CBS Evening News cleared ABC’s ultra-low bar, citing a rationale for the shutdown. The reasoning, though, lays blame squarely at the feet of The White House: KRIS VAN CLEAVE: Now some airports are telling flyers to get here three hours before their flight. This surge in wait times comes as the airlines are preparing to fly 171 million people for Spring Break. And as a partial government shutdown over the Trump administration's immigration policies enters its fourth week. The second prolonged government shutdown since October is taking a toll on some of the government's lowest paid workers. The more than 50,000 TSA officers on the job will miss a full paycheck this week and have no idea when the next one will come, driving the spike in sick calls. TSA EMPLOYEE: We don't need a promise of a paycheck. We need a paycheck. We can't go to the bank with a promise. VAN CLEAVE: With a political stalemate continuing in Washington, a trip to the airport means a flight of uncertainty at airports nationwide. Assigning shutdown blame to the administration’s immigration policies, and not to the Democrats who opposed funding DHS, seems to be a major cop-out. The report further cites a stalemate but does not clarify what the stalemate is over, or who is even stalemating. One supposes that CBS’s viewers are expected to jump on the internet if they want to know more about the shutdown. Over at NBC Nightly News, viewers get more of the same: TOM COSTELLO: The reason for the long lines, the DHS shutdown over ICE policies. Caught in the middle, TSA officers and passengers. CHRIS SUNUNU: They're just political footballs, basically, that are used as leverage points for political battles that they have nothing to do with. In this case, NBC offers a mention of the shutdown, and an incomplete quote from former New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu decrying that TSA employees are caught in a political battle. We don’t know more because the quote got clipped, denying it any visible context. There is a shutdown going on at the Department of Homeland Security, in the midst of a war, off the heels of a terrorist attack and multiple contingencies. And from watching the networks’ coverage, it seems that they know this coverage is inconvenient. Had the partisan roles been reversed? Coverage would most assuredly be (D)ifferent. Click "expand" to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective network newscasts on Monday, March 9th, 2026: CBS EVENING NEWS: TONY DOKOUPIL: We’re going to turn now to the other major travel story tonight, the major delays at America's airports as security lines in some cases snaked through concourses, downstairs, even in the baggage areas at times. What’s gone wrong, what‘s needed to fix it. Here’s Senior Transportation Correspondent Kris van Cleave. KRIS VAN CLEAVE: This is not what flyers hope to see arriving at the New Orleans airport Monday morning. Only some TSA lines open due to staffing shortages stemming from soaring sick calls. The line, snaking its way through the terminal for the second straight day. Sunday, people were in line for hours stretching out into the parking garage. TRAVELER: I was here three weeks ago during Mardi Gras, and it was no problem. This is insane. TRAVELER: I had to change my flight, so rather than a 3:00 P.M. flight,  it is now an 8:00 P.M. flight. VAN CLEAVE: At Houston's Hobby airport, wait times topped three hours Sunday, and by Monday the line was at least two hours long just to get to security. TRAVELER: We have missed both our flights. VAN CLEAVE: Now some airports are telling flyers to get here three hours before their flight. This surge in wait times comes as the airlines are preparing to fly 171 million people for Spring Break. And as a partial government shutdown over the Trump administration's immigration policies enters its fourth week. The second prolonged government shutdown since October is taking a toll on some of the government's lowest paid workers. The more than 50,000 TSA officers on the job will miss a full paycheck this week and have no idea when the next one will come, driving the spike in sick calls. TSA EMPLOYEE: We don't need a promise of a paycheck. We need a paycheck. We can't go to the bank with a promise. VAN CLEAVE: With a political stalemate continuing in Washington, a trip to the airport means a flight of uncertainty at airports nationwide. Kris van Cleave, CBS News, Phoenix. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS: TOM LLAMAS: It was a stunning scene at airports nationwide today. Security lines stretching two, even three hours long. TSA agents aren't being paid during a partial government shutdown, and now some aren't even showing up. Here's NBC’s Tom Costello. TOM COSTELLO: The start of a record-breaking spring break season and, again, long lines at some big airports. In Atlanta, the world's busiest, in Philly, time lapse captured the long lines. In New Orleans, a packed terminal with lines extended to the parking garage, and hours-long lines yet again in Houston. POLICE OFFICER: TSA line starts downstairs in baggage. TRAVELER: I have been waiting in line for about two hours now. TRAVELER: When we were outside, way far away from the door, that was a little frightening. We're still hopeful because we're moving at this point. COSTELLO: NBC’s Priscilla Thompson is there. PRISCILLA THOMPSON: This is the scene at Hobby Airport in Houston. Security lines stretch across the entire top floor, through baggage claim and snaking out on to the curb. COSTELLO: The reason for the long lines, the DHS shutdown over ICE policies. Caught in the middle, TSA officers and passengers. CHRIS SUNUNU: They're just political footballs, basically, that are used as leverage points for political battles that they have nothing to do with. COSTELLO: After receiving half a paycheck two weeks ago, TSA officers will miss a full check this week with most working paycheck to paycheck, and now some taking part-time work. JOHNNY JONES: They have their fuel tanks and need to fill up their stomachs. They have little kids that need to go to day care. COSTELLO: The TSA waiting time app is currently down so if you're traveling, watch your local airport’s website for the TSA waiting times and get there early. Tom. LLAMAS: All right. Thank you for the tips, Tom.  

Kristen Welker's softball Sunday interview on NBC with the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reminded everyone again of an anti-American double standard. The liberals inside newsrooms put enormous pressure on interviewers to question Trump fiercely, while representatives of mass-murdering Islamist regimes get open-ended softballs.  MRC senior research analyst Bill D'Agostino and our evening and Sunday news analyst Jorge Bonilla joined the show to discuss giving a platform to our enemies and other issues. Last May, the Meet the Press host asked President Trump: “People who have lived in countries like the Philippines, Hungary, Russia, they look at some of your actions, going after civil service, going after universities, law firms, the media. They say it’s out of an authoritarian playbook. What do you say to those who believe you are taking the country down an authoritarian path?” In November, Welker felt it was important to nudge Zohran Mamdani to call Trump a fascist: “So, Mr. Mayor-Elect, just to be very clear, do you think that President Trump is a fascist?” That’s Mamdani, the guy who thinks Israel commits "genocide," but Hamas terrorists did not.  On January 25, Welker harshly grilled Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis: “But let me ask, just big picture, Mr. Blanche, is the death of U.S. citizens a price the Trump administration is willing to pay to carry out its immigration policies?” But bring on the Iranian foreign minister, and the host can only offer Hostess Cupcake questions. She can't even ask "How many thousands of protesters has your government killed in recent weeks"? That might make him look authoritarian.  We also discuss CNN getting into Iran and performing with "government permission," MS NOW's bizarre comparisons of our military action with 9/11 and the Nazis (or we're worse than the Nazis), and The New York Times doing damage control for Mayor Zohran Mamdani's wife, who put "Likes" on a bunch of social-media posts celebrating the massacre of Jews (and dogs) on October 7.  Enjoy the podcast below on video. Or the audio is here. 

During Monday’s CNN This Morning, panelist Susan Page of USA Today suggested President Trump missed an opportunity to negotiate with Iran after President Masoud Pezeshkian made a video statement on Saturday as a pledge to Gulf countries that they would stop attacks against them.  Spoiler alert: the attacks against gulf countries had not stopped since Pezeshkian has little to no power over the IRGC, something CNN contributor Brett McGurk pointed out earlier in the panel segment. McGurk, while he reminded the viewers that Pezeshkian was an “accidental president,” pointed out the IRGC’s rejection of the president:  So, Pezeshkian is known as being, you know, somewhat of a moderate guy. That word is overused, but he's not really kind of totally aligned with the real hardliners. He came out with a statement on Saturday morning apologizing to gulf states, saying, we're going to stop these attacks, offering an off ramp, even. And President Trump then put out a statement saying that, you - they're basically surrendering when it comes to the Middle East states but we're going to continue the attacks. In any case, as soon as Pezeshkian spoke, within an hour or so, the hardline in Iran, the revolutionary guards said that is not our policy. And attacks against the gulf continued. Cornish then added, “So the president [of Iran] came out and said one thing, but we have the world of the supreme leader, the guard, the people who are in charge of this violent police state saying, not so fast that's not the direction.”   USA Today Washington Chief Susan Page says Trump "missed an opportunity" to negotiate with the "conciliatory" President Pezeshkian whose promise to end attacks on Saturday has, obviously, not occurred as he holds no real power in the IRGC. pic.twitter.com/ddAJrqQUNa — Nick (@nspin310) March 9, 2026   Just a few minutes later, Page decided to take Pezeshkian’s Saturday statement as a moment for illustrious peace, ignoring that attacks have continued to take place since the statement from the start of the weekend: (...) And there's some speculation, and I'd be interested in what our experts here thought, that President Trump missed an opportunity with the Iranian president's kind of conciliatory gesture there. Would it have been possible to have encouraged that a little more as opposed to rejecting it (...) Page conceded “maybe that die was already cast” before a shift to public opinion of the operation. Maybe Page should listen to the panelist before her about the realities of the Iranian President, who had no control over the religiously radical clerics in Iran’s system. Later on in the show, Cornish promoted the CNN team in Iran with correspondent Fred Pleitgen, as she gave a disclaimer on CNN’s reporting in Iran: So, our team on the ground operating in Iran, they are doing so with government permission. This is required by local regulations. And CNN does maintain its full editorial control over the reporting.    Later on CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish read a disclaimer over Fred Pleitgen's reporting in Iran. The note said CNN in Iran is "operating" with "government permission" but "CNN does maintain its full editorial control over the reporting." https://t.co/HUnDm9i1Hp pic.twitter.com/nhnp9fveVM — Nick (@nspin310) March 9, 2026   Pleitgen reported on “Black Rain,” oil mixed with rain, after strikes on Iran’s oil. It’s a simple concept to understand that if your access to Iran is given with government permission, one’s reports would be shifted to more favorable viewpoints of a radical government in order to maintain access.  Instead of gaslighting, maybe they should just admit the realities of reporting in Iran. Or they could just do the same thing they did with their coverage of Saddam Hussein's regime. The transcript is below. Click "expand": CNN This Morning March 9, 2026 6:05:45 AM Eastern (...) BRETT MCGURK: Well, over the weekend, the most dramatic internal political developments we've seen in decades. Iran's only had two supreme leaders since the ‘79 revolution. On Saturday morning when we woke up here early, President Pezeshkian, the current president, and by the way he's an accidental president because the president before him, Ebrahim Raisi, who wA likely to succeed Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash back in 2024 - AUDIE CORNISH: Plane crash. Yeah, which people didn't notice. It was a while back. MCGURK: - So, Pezeshkian is known as being, you know, somewhat of a moderate guy. That word is overused, but he's not really kind of totally aligned with the real hardliners. He came out with a statement on Saturday morning apologizing to gulf states, saying, we're going to stop these attacks, offering an off ramp, even. And President Trump then put out a statement saying that, you - they're basically surrendering when it comes to the Middle East states but we're going to continue the attacks.  In any case, as soon as Pezeshkian spoke, within an hour or so, the hardline in Iran, the revolutionary guards said that is not our policy. And attacks against the gulf continued. CORNISH: But let me underscore what you just said. So the president came out and said one thing, but we have the world of the supreme leader, the guard, the people who are in charge of this violent police state saying, not so fast that's not the direction we’re going. MCGURK: We are in charge. You had Ali Larijani, who's a longtime advisor to the now deceased supreme leader. And then within a day - yesterday, on Sunday, you had Mojtaba, Ali Khamenei's son, named. And that shows continuity of the system. And what does that mean for where we're heading? I think it closes what President Trump might have hoped was a possible off ramp in which you'd have a new leadership emerge and maybe be willing to talk to us. The Iranians have shut that door. (..) 6:09:07 AM Eastern CORNISH: We know here in the U.S., according to, at least, CNN polling earlier in the month, particularly independents, didn't feel the president had quite a grasp on Iran and like the goals and what's going on. When you look at the way the administration came out and talked over the weekend, do you have more clarity on what they would consider success? SUSAN PAGE: Well of course, President Trump said that this would be an unacceptable choice for the United States as supreme leader. The Iranians have clearly paid no attention to that. And there's some speculation, and I'd be interested in what our experts here thought, that President Trump missed an opportunity with the Iranian president's kind of conciliatory gesture there. Would it have been possible to have encouraged that a little more as opposed to rejecting it, maybe -  CORNISH: To bolster that voice. PAGE: Maybe that die was already cast. You look at American public opinion, Americans were not prepared for this war. They do not understand why we have engaged in this war. That's the case the administration has yet to make. And traditionally, in these kind of wars, approval is the highest at the beginning right before all the costs, the cost of blood and treasure begin to [inaudible]. CORNISH: Though, in fairness with Iraq, because there was 9/11, I think that the public sentiment, we were all positionally in a different place. Where as this, people are unclear and you have Hegseth, etcetera. People over the weekend saying we reserve the right for boots on the ground. They don't want to rule anything out. PAGE: But with 9/11, as with Pearl Harbor, there was a reason that we went to war and went to war then and Americans understand that - Americans have no sympathy for this regime in Iran. But why did we go to war now? That's a question that has yet to be answered. (...) 6:34:34 AM Eastern CORNISH: This morning, fires still burning at one of Iran's largest oil fuel storage facilities. Israeli forces striking multiple sites. You can see this thick black smoke is hanging over Tehran. It triggered a rare weather phenomenon of black rain.  So, our team on the ground operating in Iran, they are doing so with government permission. This is required by local regulations. And CNN does maintain its full editorial control over the reporting. So I want to show you now, CNN's Fred Pleitgen, who visited one of the hardest hit areas. [Cuts to video] FRED PLEITGEN: It's an absolutely apocalyptic scene here. We've just made it to the Shahran Oil Depot, which was attacked last night in a massive wave of airstrikes. We heard those going on for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half with massive thuds and explosions that we could hear, and that thick black plume of smoke. We saw that last night, and now we're actually seeing it up close.  And what we’re also seeing is that some of those destroyed storage tanks are still on fire. There's still flames originating from them. You can also see here that the area around here is also completely destroyed. There's people here actually working on this electricity pole to try and get the electricity back.  And then this tanker vehicle here also that is right in front of the gate has been completely destroyed as well. The front gate of the facility, also in complete ruins. The facility appears to be completely in ruins now after these massive airstrikes and, again, still on fire, still burning, and you can see that thick black smoke through the entire city, across all of Tehran. It's been raining this morning in Tehran, there was oil mixed into the rain. So this is definitely a massive incident that is still going on.

Hours after an Oliver Darcy underling screeched Sunday about CBS News’s social media platforms as having gone full MAGA for covering unsavory stories such as a Jewish Insider investigation into the radical social media history of New York City’s first lady, Monday’s CBS Mornings showed the liberal media are unsurprisingly not living in reality as the newscast welcomed far-left Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico (D) for an embarrassingly soft interview. In just over six minutes, the co-hosts never offered an adversarial question to Talarico and strayed from the network’s own role in arguably endorsing Talarico’s primary campaign or any mention of the litany of radical statements over the course of his young life, such as these compiled in one convenient mash-up by our friends at Conservative War Machine: SUPERCUT: Some of Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico's most radical views: “You can't call yourself a Christian and destroy God's creation with greenhouse gases.” “I love ... the trans children.” “No need to sit and cry over your whiteness or your masculinity. Use… pic.twitter.com/JXMrz7spRz — Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) March 9, 2026 “Coming up, fresh off his huge victory in the Texas Democratic primary, James Talarico joins us here in studio. Why he thinks he can finally turn Texas blue,” beamed featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers in a tease. Duthiers further was ebullient with Talarico sitting next to him, boasting Talarico “defeated Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett in a race that captured national attention” and now “looking forward to a general election where he will face the winner of a Republican runoff between incumbent Senator John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton.” What a complete ass-kissing of Texas Democrat James Talarico on Monday's 'CBS Mornings' Absolutely useless. David French would have been proud of this. pic.twitter.com/GOoCOVUqsF — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 9, 2026 Duthiers also had the first question, which was wildly predictable in strategizing with him about how they’ll finally take down those damn Republicans: So, it seems as if we’ve been hearing about Texas turning blue for years. I’m old enough to remember a governor who’s still who looms very large in the state of Texas, Ann Richards. Explain to us what the strategy is in terms of how the congressional makeup of Texas means that it’s been red for the last couple of years and how you hope to turn it blue. Talarico went on for 78 seconds with boilerplate progressive, faux-Christian jargon about his campaign revolving around “lov[ing] my neighbor as myself, not just my neighbor who looks like me or prays like me or votes like me” and ensuring everyone has quality schools, a safe home, and stable job because Texans possess “deep hunger for a different kind of politics, not one that’s rooted in fear or hate or division, but one that’s rooted in love,” not a “blood sport.” The panel was mesmerized by this love-without-justice, one-sided God that’s malleable to our biological delusions.  Duthiers continued to embarrass himself by asking Talarico to explain a second time how he’ll turn Texas blue even though “the combatant-in-chief has yet to weigh in” (click “expand”): DUTHIERS: You mentioned politics is a blood sport, the combatant-in-chief has yet to weigh in, but he is expected the way in on the Republican runoff race. How do you think that will impact the race? TALARICO: Well, no matter —  DUTHIERS: We’re talking about Donald Trump, of course. TALARICO: — you know, no matter what happens in this Republican runoff, we already know who we’re running against. It’s the billionaire mega donors and their corrupt political system. It’s — you’re seeing it already, the billionaires who run the algorithms, who run the cable news networks, who run the — the — so much of the politics in our state and our country. They try to divide us. They divide us on an hourly basis by party, by race, by gender, by religion. And so, we don’t notice that they are picking our pockets, that they are closing our schools in Texas. They’re gutting our health care, they’re raising taxes on working people while they cut taxes for themselves. So, this is the — it’s the oldest strategy in the world. DUTHIERS: Mmmm. TALARICO: Divide and conquer. And what we’re trying to do in Texas is bringing working people together across all those divides, so that we can take power away from those at the very top and bring it back into our community. Saturday co-host Adriana Diaz had the next two questions that were also unoriginal: So, representative, going into this race, it was really unclear who was going to win. What does your win signal you think about what Democrats in Texas voters want? (....) But what do you think it was about you in particular that appealed to so many? Talarcio enamored them with more slick talk about how “people, again, not just Democrats, but independents and Republicans too, they’re really sick of this politics that we’ve had for the last 10 years” and so he’s “building” a movement “across partisan, racial, cultural, or religious divides” to “take power back for ourselves” and “the American Dream.” Co-host Nate Burleson asked his only question, which was a softball on Iran. Following another unchallenged mouthfull, Duthiers had the final question wondering if congressional Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries (NY) and Chuck Schumer (NY) are on the same wavelength as him (click “expand”): BURLESON: Let’s talk about the war on Iran. What are you hearing from your constituents in Texas about how they feel about this war that’s happening right now? TALARICO: Well, you know, as a millennial, I saw how military disasters like the Iraq War robbed this nation of young lives, of billions of dollars of our moral standing in the world, and I worry that our current leaders are repeating those same mistakes. I was in San Branch, Texas, which is a community south of Dallas that doesn’t have running water. It doesn’t have basic sewer infrastructure, so every dollar we spend bombing people in the Middle East is a dollar we’re not spending in San Branch, Texas, or in our communities here at home. We’re — we’re always told that we don’t have enough money for schools or for health care or for our veterans, but there’s always enough money to bomb people on the other side of the world. And so, we can support the democracy movement in Iran. We can prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, all without bombing innocent schoolchildren or sending our American troops off to die on the other side of the world. DUTHIERS: Representative, but are the leaders in your party, specifically Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, bringing that message home to the Republicans to the President? TALARICO: I don’t know. All I know is what’s happening in Texas and people across the political spectrum are deeply worried about another forever war in the Middle East, and especially young people who are seeing not only gas prices rise, but they’re seeing this affordability crisis that continues to go unaddressed by our leaders in Washington. And so I — I think a lot of us are mystified that we’re starting another forever war instead of focusing on lowering costs for working people. This would have been an embarrassing supposed interview for CBS even before the Skydance/Bari Weiss takeover, but Monday’s canoodling masquerading as journalism was all the more embarrassing considering Weiss is at helm. To see the relevant CBS transcript from March 9, click here.

The New York Times was apparently so eager for an economic win to skewer President Donald Trump’s military achievements in Iran that it ended up making itself look foolish. As the saying goes: Curb your enthusiasm! “Oil Prices Spike Over $110 a Barrel, Highest Since Pandemic,” read the March 8 headline from Times  reporters Rebecca F. Elliott and Joe Rennison. Of course, zeroing on the “ since the pandemic” angle allowed Elliott and Rennison to avoid mentioning President Joe Biden’s name at all, when Brent crude oil spiked to $119 a barrel June 6, 2022, and when gas prices surged to the highest average on record at over $5 June 14, 2022. And guess what: That happened without the U.S. leading a joint international effort to finally topple an entire, bloodthirsty regime. But Elliot and Rennison railed that the brief oil market shock was a “sign of growing concern that” the successful mission to cut the head off the “Death to America” snake in Tehran “will continue to take a toll on energy supplies, raising gas prices for American consumers and weighing on the stock market.” Here’s the problem: That narrative just had an hours-long shelf life. Both West Texas Intermediate (U.S.) and Brent crude oil prices (global) fell under $100 as finance ministers from G-7 countries discussed releasing up to 400 million barrels of oil. WTI Crude plunged as far as beneath $92.50 barrel after peaking over $119 early Monday morning. As popular economics-focused social media account Geiger Capital wrote in an X post around noon, “Oil is now in a bear market… Down -20% from [its] recent highs.” Industrial commentary company The Kobeissi Letter contextualized around 6:00 am that this complete 180-degree turnaround was reflective of “one of the biggest daily crude oil reversals in history.”  BREAKING: US oil prices extend their reversal to drop below $92.50/barrel, now up just +1% on the day. We may actually see a +30% to negative reversal today. pic.twitter.com/75uFLYk0va — The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 9, 2026 The closest Elliott and Rennison came at first to an update for their sky-is-falling item was 9:15 am, which allowed the authors to get ahead of and gloss over a clear free-fall trend to avoid admitting initially that prices were about to fall under $100 a barrel: The price came down below $110 a barrel after reports that governments were taking steps to ease concerns about tightening supplies of oil. As of 12:48 p.m., Kobeissi noted that oil prices were on “the verge of turning negative.” Natural Gas Futures as of 1:37 pm erased “all gains on the day and turn negative, now down -2%.” Talk about slipping on an oil slick! No other update was posted to Elliott and Rennison’s item until 3:31 pm, around the time that Brent crude dipped below $90 and WTI crude fell to $85, but the headline still reflected the scareporn the authors were pushing the day prior as if that narrative was still the case. There could be a nefarious reason for that. BREAKING: US oil prices extend reversal to -$26/barrel in 13 hours after President Trump says he will be holding a "news conference" at 5:30 PM ET. Oil prices are now up just +2% on the day and on the verge of turning negative. pic.twitter.com/16yqcELnU2 — The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) March 9, 2026 As Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino stated on X, impulsive commodities traders “trade off headlines, totally myopic in short-term thinking and predicting.” Elliot and Rennison’s item was no exception to that rule. All the media doom mongering and trading meltdown to boot, concluded Gasparino, was that it ignores the likely outcome “that within days we will 100% control the supply of oil coming out of the Straits of Hurmuz, or that Iran will be 100 decapitated as a military force and a financier of terror.”  But if you were a trader reading The Times, you’d be instigated into an anxiety attack. “The huge jump in oil prices suggests that traders are increasingly worried about being able to access oil and natural gas from the Persian Gulf,” suggested Elliott and Rennison. That’s interesting, because International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol just told European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen and EU commissioners a couple of days ago that “There is plenty of oil, we have no oil shortage … There is a huge surplus in the market,” according to The Economic Times. The current downward trend on oil prices appears to be reflective of Birol’s sentiments. Well, what gives!