WE DRILLED, BABY, WE DRILLED: The Oil Reserve Hit a 43-Year Low. America’s Energy Muscle Didn’t.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
June 16, 2026
THE NEW SPACE RACE:
SpaceX will launch "Starfall Demo" mission NET June 21st per FAA Operations Plan Advisory from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral, FL.
A single Starfall test re-entry vehicle will launch Southeast from the cape over the Bahamas with the 1st stage likely boosting back to a Land LZ.
The… pic.twitter.com/fHjkqQKPU4
— Dillon Shropshire (@Dillonshrop06) June 16, 2026
“This mission isn’t officially on SpaceX’s itinerary, so date and exact information aren’t known with 100% certainty. This should serve as a preliminary glimpse into this mission.”
But here’s something even bigger that is on SpaceX’s itinerary:
FCC Filing for a "Starship Orbital Return Demo" 🔥 pic.twitter.com/n9xCl8KUVl
— Niall Anderson (@INiallAnderson) June 16, 2026
The company will attempt to take Starship orbital for the first time starting as soon as July 29.
HEY, BIG SPENDER: SpaceX locks in $60 billion Cursor deal to power AI coding push.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX said on Tuesday it would acquire Anysphere, the software firm behind the popular AI coding agent Cursor, for $60 billion, in a bid to ramp up its presence in the enterprise AI market.
The announcement comes days after Musk took the rockets-to-AI company public in a blockbuster Nasdaq debut that valued the firm at more than $2 trillion and immediately made it one of the world’s most valuable companies.
SpaceX had been eyeing Cursor for several months. The company said in April it had secured an option to either acquire the San Francisco-based company for $60 billion later this year, or pay $10 billion for a new partnership.
The deal could give xAI, the Grok chatbot maker that SpaceX merged with in February, a stronger foothold in the AI coding market where it has so far lagged rivals. It would also provide Cursor with more computing capacity to develop AI models.
SpaceX’s shares were up nearly 10% in premarket trading, on track to add about $247 billion to its market capitalization of $2.53 trillion. At $211.27, the stock has climbed more than 56% from its IPO price of $135.
If the gains hold, SpaceX is set to overtake Amazon in value to become the fifth-largest company.
Anysphere was valued at $50 billion in March.
SAFETY IS THE SALES PITCH, CONTROL IS THE PRODUCT:
Social media age verification will not stop the rape gangs, secure the border or fix the weather.
Age verification won’t protect children either. It’s not meant to.
This is just another attempt at universal Bio-Metric Digital ID.
— Resist CBDC 🏁 (@Resist_CBDC) June 16, 2026
DON’T CONFUSE THEM WITH FACTS: DOJ Investigation of Newsom Began Under Biden Administration.
YES: End the Renewable Fuel Standard Now, and Lower Gas Prices. “The Energy Policy Research Foundation (EPRF) has crunched some numbers on this, and the findings paint an expensive and unpleasant picture. These and the other various regulations and requirements are estimated to be costing a typical American family of four an added $734 per annum in fuel costs.”
NIFTY: Here’s Where to Track (and Predict!) Your Congresscritter’s Insider Trades “Democrats like California’s dynamic trading duo, Nancy Pelosi and Ro Khanna, made some of the biggest returns, but plenty of Republicans are in on the game, too.”
REQUIRED READING:
🚨 I won't sugar coat it: our Education Secretary needs to put on her counter-terror hat and address what's unfolding at the University of Michigan on our dime.
It is nothing short of a jihadist takeover.
Amir Makled is an attorney in Dearborn, Michigan.
Recently, 8 students… pic.twitter.com/koJijg72Nx
— NizNellie3 (@NizNellie3) June 16, 2026
Amir Makled is an attorney in Dearborn, Michigan.
Recently, 8 students were federally indicted for unleashing a campaign of violence against Board Regents for nearly 2 years.
The pic on the right is Makled with Alex Sepulveda.
Alex was one of the 8 students arrested by the FBI. He threw chemical agents through the windows of Board Regents homes, as well as participated in violent attacks against university officials.
Makled has appeared with these 8 terrorist students multiple times.
He’s now running in an election to become one of those Board Regents at U of M.
He would be serving alongside the regents WHO WERE ATTACKED and marked for death by the “Gang of 8” for their refusal to divest from Israel.
The enemy is inside our education system.
THEY JUST CAN’T HELP IT: Republicans Saved by Democrats’ Vanity Projects—Again.
Earlier this week, I told you about a Politico story that should send ice through Republican veins: Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at a news conference Monday that the first bill the Democrats plan to pass if they win the House in November would focus on lowering costs, and Democrats are already working on legislation to tackle the biggest struggle Americans are currently facing.
Luckily for the Republicans, that story is already dated.
…
Rep. Jamie Raskin wants voting rights…Rep. Yvette Clarke said she’d like to see the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act revived in any new H.R. 1. as well as “comprehensive immigration reform.”
Rep. Adriano Espaillat wants H.R. 1 to claw back funding for ICE and redirect it to Medicaid and affordable housing.
Rep. Brad Schneider wants the party to undo Trump’s tariffs in their first action.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is on the health care working group, wants “guaranteed health care.”
Then there’s Rep. Ro Khanna, believed to be considering a presidential run in 2028. He laid out his agenda on a podcast later in the week, and it included the usual progressive priorities: Abolish ICE, expand the Supreme Court, and a billionaire’s tax.
Left unsaid: There hardly a Democrat policy that doesn’t involve making things more expensive.
THE MILLION AND SIXTH TIME IS THE CHARM: George Conway Is Back, and THIS Time He’s Really, Really Gonna Get Trump.
RENDRE COUP POUR COUP: Trump warns France in exclusive interview with The Post: Kill tech tax or face 100% wine tariffs: ‘I have no choice.’
Trump said he gave the blunt warning directly to outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron, demanding he ditch the 3% tech levy or face devastating duties in the American market, which accounts for a fifth of the French wine industry’s global sales — worth more than $2 billion annually.
“I asked him not to charge American companies, and if they do, I have no choice but to charge a 100% tariff on all champagnes and all wines coming out of France,” Trump told The Post. “All [Macron] has to do is get rid of the sales tax, and he wouldn’t have that kind of pressure.”
The ultimatum drew a defiant response from Macron, who on Monday told French TV channel TF1 that “tariffs don’t do anyone any good, especially tariffs between G7 countries”. Asked if he would yield to the tariff threats, he responded: “No, because that is not how it works.”
I suppose we’ll see about that, including how long Macron can hide behind the fiction that his “tech levy” isn’t effectively a tariff on American tech firms.
Near as I could get Grok and GPT to figure it out for me, if the entire French tech sector were one American firm, it probably wouldn’t rank among the U.S. top 15 in market cap — maybe the size of Sandisk, or at best, Netflix.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems Routinely Call Us Nazis but Soil Their Diapers If We Insult Them. “I’m quite happy to be down in the gutter with them for a while now. It would be good if I didn’t have to stay here forever, but it’s the best way to convey messages to the other side for the moment.”
IT CERTAINLY WON’T DEBUNK ITSELF:
Can we debunk this nonsense?
Elon Musk was awarded (note: not given) cost-per-result contracts to perform a service for the US government. The total of those for SpaceX specifically is ~$22B, which includes repaid loans, state tax incentives, etc.
The deal was simple: put… https://t.co/W5WQQtMGNc
— Sam (@DigitalSamIAm) June 14, 2026
“So: SpaceX saved the US taxpayer more than the total value of contracts it earned on a single project, PLUS provided the US government with the requested services (put stuff in LEO) at the best possible price.”
But if you present the facts to a member in good standing of the Party of Science™, they’ll call you a Nazi.
THIS IS THE WRONG QUESTION: How Quickly Can the Strait of Hormuz Get Back Up and Running?
“The backlog of stranded vessels and the need for crew changes and rest mean a realistic return to normal shipping patterns is weeks, if not months, away,” said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation. He added that the deal wouldn’t be the end. “It is, at best, the beginning,” Cotton said.
Coordinating the order of transits will take time. It is unclear whether Iran would continue to control the strait, and whether tolls would be charged, analysts said.
“It’ll all come down to the actual ship count out, and then, more importantly, to what Iran actually allows,” said Rory Johnston, founder of oil research firm Commodity Context. “Even if it is over, then we’ll start the monthslong process of renormalizing traffic.”
The correct question is, how long will it take for the Arab Gulf states to make the Gulf much less relevant?
One thing that sticks with me: The Hormuz shutdown woke up the entire region to the fact that the Iranian regime is a hostage taker. The Iranian regime "broke glass in case of emergency," but now the reputational damage is permanent.
Iran's neighbors wanted a speedy end to… pic.twitter.com/4QDBj9hRIw
— Max 📟 (@MaxNordau) June 15, 2026
“Iran’s neighbors wanted a speedy end to fighting because they weren’t ready to handle the redistributed shipping load, but now they’re going to work to make sure that they’re not vulnerable to disruption in case the IRGC does this again.”
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 15, 2026
WE’VE REACHED “THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR WOMEN” STAGE:
Your tears and rage are like unto sweet wine and beautiful music.
— Eric S. Raymond (@esrtweet) June 15, 2026
BIG MONEY: SpaceX IPO raised $10bn more than thought.
Elon Musk’s rocket and Artificial Intellgience (AI) company pulled off the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history when it joined New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange last week.
The listing had raised $75bn from investors, which Musk told employees will be spent funding a “significant growth phase”.
But the banks which backed the IPO exercised a so-called “greenshoe” clause, which let them purchase an extra $10bn of SpaceX shares.
The extra $10bn raised, revealed in a statement by SpaceX announcing the completion of the listing, would by itself rank as one of the biggest IPOs in history.
It came thanks to a financial mechanism known as an overallotment option, more commonly referred to as a “greenshoe” option.
When a company goes public in a highly anticipated listing, investor demand can outstrip the initial supply of shares.
To prevent wild price swings and ensure a smoother launch, a greenshoe agreement lets the banks handling the listing sell more shares than originally planned.
In SpaceX’s case, appetite was exceptionally high.
Here’s maybe one small reason why, courtesy of a CNBC interview from Friday:
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell just laid out the official launch roadmap for Starship, and the cadence is about to go vertical
Here's the timeline:
• Flight 13: Launch is roughly a month away
• Flight 14: The big one. SpaceX intends to attempt a full orbital injection
•… pic.twitter.com/tTPchVUA93— X Freeze (@XFreeze) June 14, 2026
Getting Starship into service before the end of the year would be a Very Big Deal, and Shotwell’s ETAs tend to be a bit more reliable than Elon’s.
MONEY… FINDS A WAY:
Capital is voting with its feet.
France, Germany & Spain are now net exporters of wealth. Britain alone lost 16,500 millionaires last year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. gained 7,500 millionaires and now hosts over 1/3 of the world’s $30M+ individuals! pic.twitter.com/FwwlgnYHTD
— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) June 15, 2026
Of course, we might not be more than one Democrat administration from Europe’s woes.
June 15, 2026
BREAKING: Military Plane Crashes at California Air Force Base “On Monday, around 11:20 a.m. PDT, a B-52 Stratofortress plane crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, which is located in Kern and San Bernardino Counties in California. The aircraft had just taken off, according to reports.”
EMMANUEL RINCON: The Long Tradition of Wealth-Extracting Socialists.
From Karl Marx to Vladimir Lenin, from Fidel Castro to Hugo Chávez, many of these figures denounced private wealth and entrepreneurship, despite the fact that few, if any, lived according to the austere principles they publicly promoted. Instead, many enjoyed lives marked by privilege, luxury, and the very economic advantages they claimed to despise.
This pattern is not confined to communist regimes. In the United States, self-described socialists have often criticized wealth accumulation — until they themselves became wealthy. Senator Bernie Sanders is among the most notable examples. For years, Sanders condemned millionaires and argued that extreme wealth accumulation was immoral. Yet after purchasing multiple homes and earning millions of dollars through book sales criticizing capitalism, his rhetoric shifted largely toward attacking billionaires instead.
Today, the methods have changed, but the underlying dynamic remains the same.
Read the whole thing.
ICYMI: Will No One Rid Me of This Turbulent Musk? “Italics in the original, because otherwise some lefty freakazoid with a rifle might not get the subtle shout-out to assassinate the man who gave the world cheap access to space, universal high-speed internet access, the first mass-produced electric vehicles, and Neuralink brain implants for the disabled.”