MMN Editor

President Donald Trump has never suffered from an attention deficit.Ours, maybe. His, never.For more than a decade, Trump has demonstrated an almost supernatural ability to decide what America will talk about. A nickname. A Truth Social post. A feud. A rally. A tariff. A threat. A late-night broadside against somebody who had the gall to criticize him.TO WIN IN NOVEMBER, REPUBLICANS NEED TO TAKE A PAGE FROM OBAMA’S PLAYBOOKTrump throws the ball and Washington and the media chase it.But something interesting is happening as we head toward the midterms.REPUBLICANS FACE BRUTAL MIDTERM HEADWINDS. SIX FORCES COULD HELP THEM DEFY HISTORY.The country may be getting tired of chasing.The latest Fox News poll contains a number that should be flashing in giant red letters inside the White House: Asked, without being given a list, to name the most important issue facing the country, 34% of registered voters said the cost of living. Another 14% said the economy and jobs.FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: WHAT’S IN AN ECONOMY?Nothing else came close. Immigration was at 8%. The war with Iran, 4%. AI and data centers, despite consuming approximately 94% of the oxygen in corporate America, registered at 1%.Voters are not being subtle.IT’S NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID. AMERICANS VOTE BASED ON THEIR PERSONAL ECONOMYThey are saying: It’s the prices. Stupid.And yet much of the political conversation seems to be happening somewhere else.REPUBLICANS JUST GOT A POWERFUL NEW PLAYBOOK FOR THE BATTLE FOR CONGRESS. HERE’S WHAT’S INSIDETrump is battling the media. He is talking about his predecessor. He is dealing with Iran, China, immigration and AI. Some of those issues are enormously consequential. Presidents do not get to spend their days staring at the price of eggs.But voters don’t experience the presidency as a policy seminar.RECORD GAS PRICES SQUEEZE AMERICANS AS SUMMER TRAVEL SEASON ENDS, MIDTERMS LOOM AND IRAN WAR WAGES ONThey experience it at the grocery store.At the gas pump.THE OVERLOOKED WAY THE IRAN WAR IS MAKING GROCERIES, AMAZON PACKAGES AND NEW HOMES MORE EXPENSIVEWhen the utility bill arrives.When they look at what it costs to buy a house, see a doctor or fill their grocery cart.BILLIONS SPENT BY KEY FEDERAL AGENCY HASN’T MADE AMERICAN DREAM OF HOMEOWNERSHIP ANY EASIER: REPORTAnd on those questions, the Fox numbers are difficult for the administration. Sixty-two percent say grocery prices are a major problem. Sixty-one percent say the same about gas prices. Fifty-four percent say it about housing. Fifty-two percent about health care. And 63% say the Trump administration has made the economy worse.The administration can point to its own economic strength data. Employment has remained resilient, and the stock market has performed strongly. Fox’s own analysis recently noted job growth and unemployment of 4.1%.But this is where presidents (and politicians writ large) discover one of the more irritating rules of politics:You don’t get to tell voters how they feel about the economy.They tell you.That was true for President Joe Biden. It is true for Donald Trump.Biden spent much of his presidency pointing to macroeconomic statistics that were considerably healthier than the public mood. Inflation was coming down. Jobs were being created. The economy had avoided the recession many economists predicted.And voters kept saying some version of: That’s lovely. Do you know how much a dozen eggs cost?Trump understood that disconnect better than almost anyone. He turned economic frustration into political fuel. Now he owns the podium. Which means he also owns the problem.A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 17% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the cost of living. His overall approval was 32% in that survey. Fox, polling registered voters with a different methodology, put his overall approval at 39% and his approval on inflation at 24%. Different polls, different populations, same warning light: affordability is a major vulnerability for the administration.This is where Trump’s greatest communications strength can become a weakness. He understands attention better than perhaps any political figure of the modern era. He knows how to interrupt. He knows how to provoke. He knows how to make himself the main character. But attention and persuasion are not the same thing.Attention is getting everyone to look at you.Persuasion is getting them to look at the problem differently.And right now, voters appear to have a problem they don’t particularly want changed. They want it solved.There is another revealing number buried in the Fox poll. Democrats currently hold a 15-point advantage over Republicans when voters are asked which party they trust more on inflation. But the same poll offers an important qualification: voters who trust Democrats on inflation are slightly more likely to say it is because Republicans have failed than because they believe Democratic policies will lower prices. That isn’t exactly a love letter to either party. It’s an eviction notice to whoever voters think isn’t listening. And that’s why the midterm communications challenge may be simpler than Washington is making it.Trump doesn’t need another subject. He has one. Affordability. Every other argument can run through it.China? What does competing with China mean for American jobs and prices?AI? What does it mean for my paycheck and electric bill?Iran? What does a prolonged conflict mean for gasoline and the cost of moving goods around the country?Taxes and tariffs? What will I pay?The communications opportunity isn’t necessarily to talk less about the world. It’s to translate the world into the lives people are actually living. Trump’s political genius has always been his instinct for finding the thing people are feeling before the political establishment figures out how to talk about it.In 2016, that was disruption.In 2024, it was frustration with prices, immigration and the direction of the country.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONIn 2026, voters are once again telling Washington exactly what’s bothering them.The question is whether Washington is listening. Trump can still make America look. The harder task now is convincing Americans that he’s looking at what they’re looking at.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM LEE CARTER 

Democrats are pitching themselves as the answer to the economic woes Americans are facing in their pursuit of power in Congress, but they have made a habit of blocking the GOP’s attempts to tackle cost of living issues.Affordability has become the centerpiece of the Democrats’ campaign messaging heading into Election Day in November, and they’ve wielded it like a political cudgel that left-wing candidates from Michigan to Texas are using to browbeat Republicans.But in the Senate, it requires cooperation and compromise to tackle those issues, and Republicans say that their colleagues across the aisle have bedeviled that process. They’ll have one last shot Wednesday to address a sliver of the issue with a bill targeting data centers and voters’ pocketbooks, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus are poised to block it.FIRST DATA CENTER BILL CLEARS HOUSE AS BOTH PARTIES SCRAMBLE FOR ANSWERS ON AFFORDABILITY”I think right now, the whole thing is just, you know, play politics with all these issues and get to the election,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital. “I think that, you know, what you’re seeing is that this is the party of no, can’t take yes for an answer, and is interested in just trying to politicize everything going into the election.”When asked if blocking the data center bill, and another that would ban members of Congress from trading stocks, could turn the table on Democrats’ messaging, Thune said “Well, it makes it pretty hard for Democrats to make that argument.”Democrats don’t believe that blocking the bill from Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, would hurt their affordability message, particularly because the legislation lacks teeth — many of the requirements for large-load customers, like data centers, to repay their electricity usage are optional.Schumer trashed the data center bill as being purely politically motivated to bolster a vulnerable candidate staring down a tough race in November against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, even though only three House Democrats voted against it earlier this month.ANXIETY GROWS OVER EMERGING ELECTION ISSUE, BUT GOP SAYS WASHINGTON ISN’T THE ANSWER”Because we don’t vote for frauds,” Schumer said when asked why Senate Democrats wouldn’t vote for it. “It’s voluntary. Not a single company has to comply with it.”Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital that if “you guys do your job and explain that the the bill does nothing,” the political ramifications would be low for Democrats.”It does nothing, and so people know that, but there’s more political risk for them than for us,” Murphy said.When asked if there was a concern that shutting the bill down could hamper their best weapon on the campaign trail, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., told Fox News Digital, “Absolutely not.””The American people can see through just the politics of this. They know that this bill is good for Senator Husted, but not necessarily for them, because it’s not — it doesn’t have anything that would actually force change,” Kim said.REPUBLICANS FEAR THEY ‘HAVEN’T DONE A DAMN THING’ TO LOWER PRICES AHEAD OF MIDTERM RECKONINGNot all Democrats want to outright kill the GOP’s latest affordability push, however.Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., isn’t totally against allowing the legislation to proceed, but he wants a guarantee from Thune that his bill, the Power for the People Act, would get an amendment vote to add some regulatory heft to the measure.”You want to address the affordability issue, you need to do something real,” Van Hollen told Fox News Digital. “As soon as Senator Thune says he’ll have a vote on Power for the People Act, then for sure, we should go forward.”It’s not the only attempt at grappling with affordability issues that Democrats have sunk, or at least kneecapped, near the finish line before the midterms.Republican leaders wanted to get a deal on permitting reform, which would lower costs on energy projects and reform the regulatory process writ large, on the floor during this final sprint before the election, but Democrats walked away from the deal last week.”I would tell you, all the chemistry, I think, was perfect for getting this deal done,” Sen. Alan Armstrong, R-Okla., who has led the permitting reform push told Fox News Digital. “And that doesn’t happen very often on such a complex issue. So it’s very disappointing.”The deal is reportedly back on, but won’t be handled until after the election during Congress’ lame duck period, where several agenda items have been punted that may never see the light of day.Still, Republicans will need Democrats to get anything post-election, and the track record of bipartisanship over the near two years that they’ve controlled the chamber has ebbed and flowed.”I mean, we got 53 Republicans, you got to have 60. I’d have busted the filibuster a long time ago and we would’ve had a lot more done,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Fox News Digital. “But we wasted a year and a half of President Trump.”

November is looming and Republicans are eager to turn out every voter that propelled them to victory in 2024. A critical part of their winning coalition was the “MAHA Moms,” a group that doesn’t neatly fit into either party but cares deeply about food safety, public health, and a clean environment.President Trump won this group in 2024 largely by joining forces with RFK Jr., who is, according to some polls, currently the most popular member of the Trump administration. But there’s no guarantee these voters will stick with the GOP. If Republicans want to drive MAHA mom turnout, they need to champion a winning environmental-health agenda.Ultimately, MAHA moms don’t just want to be able to afford food for their families. They want to afford good food. Because raising healthy kids shouldn’t require being rich.TRUMP TO NOMINATE DR HEIDI OVERTON AS NEXT FDA COMMISSIONERMoms across the socioeconomic spectrum have started reading ingredient labels, worrying about pesticides, cutting out food dyes, and filtering water. RFK Jr. isn’t popular because he gets everything right, but because he was the first political leader in a long time to confront the chronic disease epidemic and question why half of the ingredients on the average loaf of bread were only intelligible to a small subset of food scientists.RFK Jr. has had initial successes.The administration has proposed closing the decades-old loophole that allowed food companies to introduce new chemicals without telling the FDA.HHS and USDA also submitted the government’s first proposed definition of ultra-processed foods, which make up nearly 60 percent of the American diet.And most recently, the EPA announced a cutting-edge study screening drinking water for over 1,400 emerging contaminants, including PFAS, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and the abortion-inducing mifepristone. For MAHA moms, these are tangible signs that someone in Washington is finally listening.BROOKE ROLLINS, DR. BEN CARSON: WE ARE PUTTING REAL FOOD BACK ON SCHOOL LUNCH TRAYSBut, progress on one front has come with frustration on another. The same administration that is scrutinizing food additives has moved to protect glyphosate, the herbicide found in Roundup and the most widely used weed killer in American agriculture that some fear is carcinogenic. When the Supreme Court heard arguments in a major Roundup liability case this spring, the Trump administration filed a brief on behalf of the pesticide’s manufacturer. RFK Jr. largely sidestepped questions about the administration’s pesticide stance when pressed by Congress.Meanwhile, under Administrator Zeldin’s deregulatory agenda, the EPA has moved to roll back drinking water standards for PFAS and weakened protections against mercury and other air pollutants.MAHA moms are not naive about this tension. They are thankful their concerns are finally part of the national conversation. Likewise, they are wary of the left’s heavy-handed government policies that have failed to improve public health while making life unaffordable. But, they haven’t yet been convinced that the GOP actually wants to respond to their concerns rather than check a few boxes.If Republicans want to build a sustainable coalition around MAHA, they need more than ad hoc wins. They need a distinctly conservative environmental and health agenda, one that takes the constituency’s concerns seriously without defaulting to the assumption that another layer of federal regulation will fix them.REPUBLICANS JUST GOT A POWERFUL NEW PLAYBOOK FOR THE BATTLE FOR CONGRESS. HERE’S WHAT’S INSIDEThat balance is not impossible. It starts by applying the conservative principles of private-sector initiative, deregulation, light-touch intervention to environmental concerns.”Take farmers. Many are trapped in a system that pays them to lean on pesticides and synthetic fertilizers they’d rather not use. A conservative agricultural agenda could eliminate perverse subsidies that entrench chemical dependency while creating new incentives for regenerative farming practices that produce cleaner food, healthier soil, and better farm economics, all without a Washington bureaucrat telling farmers how to do their jobs.BROOKE ROLLINS, MONICA CROWLEY: AMERICA’S FAMILY FARMS HAVE KEPT US STRONG FOR 250 YEARSThe same logic extends to energy, and it leads straight back to the grocery bill. Fresh food is expensive in part because it is energy-hungry. It has to be grown, processed, refrigerated, and trucked, and kept cold the whole way to the shelf. Whole ingredients and minimally processed foods, the kind MAHA moms are trying to buy, are among the most exposed to those costs. Cheaper, more abundant power brings them down at every step.Relatedly, the private sector, not a Green New Deal, is driving a historic solar buildout that has the technology on track to become the world’s largest source of power by 2035. The Trump administration’s deregulation of nuclear energy points the same direction. It’s one of the cleanest and most reliable sources available, delivering cleaner air and a steadier grid without the intermittency problems of wind and solar. For farmers, processors, and grocers alike, that means lower operating costs, and for families it means the difference between good food as a luxury and good food as the default.GOP HANDED NEW LIFELINE ON BIGGEST POCKETBOOK FIGHT OF MIDTERMSNone of these things are left-wing ideas. They apply the logic of conservatism to the health and environmental issues that matter to millions of voters.Republicans have a narrow window to win over MAHA moms with a conservative agenda that takes environmental health concerns seriously. If the GOP answers the call, it will pay dividends not just in the midterms, but in the elections to come.

At first glance, Rachel Accurso, better known by her persona Ms. Rachel, looks like your typical toddler entertainer clad in denim overalls, a pink t-shirt and a matching headband. However, Accurso has been at the center of political controversies, which heightened as she began talking about the situation in Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas unfolded. The children’s entertainer has been accused of amplifying Hamas data and elevating narratives that have proven to be false.Recently, Accurso voiced her support for rapper Macklemore, who was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s “Loop Tour” after he repeatedly called for a “Free Palestine” and performed his anti-Israel song “Hind’s Hall” during his opening act at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.Macklemore announced he would donate the $1 million he earned from the tour to organizations aiding Palestinians. Accurso later announced that she would match the rapper’s $1 million donation, giving it to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, an organization for which she is an ambassador.In one of her more famous controversies, Accurso called Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza her “friend” in a 2025 video. The clip was taken just days before Azaiza admitted that he hid footage of Israeli hostages being beaten by a crowd in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. He told an Arabic-language podcast he hid the footage over concerns that it would put the Palestinians involved in the beatings at risk. Accurso later deleted the video, though clips have resurfaced since its original publication.MS RACHEL URGES ‘EVERY WEALTHY WHITE CELEBRITY’ TO MATCH MACKLEMORE’S DONATION TO PALESTINIAN CAUSESWhen speaking to the Guardian, Accurso addressed her choice to take political stands, saying that she has “a really good moral compass.””This is the case for a lot of liberals,” Bethany Mandel, a Washington Examiner contributor, author and homeschooling mom of six, told Fox News Digital. “They don’t see it as a political perspective at all. They just see the world in black and white and what they are doing is so clearly correct.”Mandel argues that this mindset comes from creators who rarely step outside their ideological “bubble” to engage with those who hold opposing beliefs.When it comes to issues such as the war in Gaza, Mandel believes this dynamic becomes particularly dangerous, with some adopting a singular narrative and platforming controversial numbers, sometimes supplied by Hamas-run agencies.”It’s important to understand that she only cares about one narrative. She only cares about this very false narrative where what’s happening in Gaza is a genocide, falsely categorizing it as such,” Mandel said of Accurso. “She amplifies numbers that are not real, the numbers of deceased children, the numbers of people who have died in general, she’s accepting a Hamas narrative on every single thing and amplifying it.”MS RACHEL CONFRONTED ON ACCUSING ISRAEL OF ‘GENOCIDE’ IN PARK INTERACTION WITH PODCASTERAccurso’s controversies have gone beyond her content and into the comment section of her posts. In January 2026, she drew scrutiny after appearing to “like” a comment that read “free America from the Jews.”Accurso explained that she meant to delete the comment, but “accidentally hit like and hide,” according to the Jerusalem Post. The outlet noted that in response to her apology post, an account titled “thepalestinenewsnetwork” wrote, “Spoiler alert: They left the comment themselves.” Accurso replied “ooooooooooohhhhh,” but the comment was later deleted.”She is serving as their mouthpiece for a lot of Americans not just children and not just the adults that follow her,” Mandel told Fox News Digital.While Accurso’s politics became more publicly scrutinized after she began speaking about Gaza, Mandel contends that it’s not the first issue on which the children’s entertainer took a left-leaning stance. Mandel said that she realized Accurso “cares more about activism than education” when the children’s entertainer had a non-binary musician as a guest. While Mandel did not specify the musician’s name, it was likely Jules Hoffman, who was known for making videos with Accurso.”She’s had fellow musicians and performers on camera with her who have no gender, and she takes away gender from these individuals especially, and they are amorphous, they go by they/them. And it’s a woman, but you can’t really tell that, especially as a child,” Mandel told Fox News Digital.MS RACHEL CLAIMS CELEBRITIES SILENT ON GAZA WOULD ‘PROBABLY’ SPEAK IF CHILDREN ‘WERE WHITE’”And this is something that’s really very damaging to children who are in the early stages of development, because one of the first ways that children learn to organize the world around them is by categorization, and the easiest way for a toddler to categorize the world around them is by female and male.”Mandel said that the erasure of gender for young children is something that could potentially have “detrimental consequences.””This is what Donald Rumsfeld talked about, the unknown unknowns,” Mandel explained, noting that altering foundational development markers are uncharted territory when it comes to early childhood education and socialization. “When we take that ability to categorize away from children, we’ve never done that in human history before. And it absolutely will have detrimental consequences to how they order the world around them, and we’re just going to have to find out what those consequences are.”While not all parents may be concerned with gender representation or disagree with Accurso’s commentary on Gaza, Mandel argues that for most families, it’s only a matter of time before the children’s entertainer crosses a line.”Parents need to choose these entertainers wisely because perhaps parents don’t care about the gender stuff, perhaps parents don’t care about what she’s saying about Gaza, but if they are not ultra-ultra-liberal, Ms. Rachel will eventually land on something that they do feel discomfort with,” she told Fox News Digital.Mandel urges parents to carefully screen everything before they show it to their kids, something that she does for her own children. As for Mandel’s household, Ms. Rachel did not pass the test. Mandel told Fox News Digital that years ago she removed Accurso’s channel from her family’s YouTube playlist, a decision that has given her peace of mind.”I feel relieved as a Jewish parent that I took Ms. Rachel off of our playlist on YouTube years ago, and I’m sure I will continue to feel great about that decision in the years to come,” Mandel said.Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Accurso to request comment.

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who has touted his working-class bonafides on the campaign trail, is facing backlash from both sides of the aisle over a viral ad that critics are labeling as tone-deaf pandering. “If Republicans spend $46 million on these tv ads, who’s gunna be convinced by that?” Jackson is asked in the ad as he sips a boba tea.Jackson then looks around and smiles before saying “the 1%ers” as a photo of his opponent Sen. Susan Collins and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are shown on the screen.The ad’s caption reads “sips boba tea” alongside a boba and wide-eyed emoji.SUSAN COLLINS TEARS INTO BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS AS NEW CLAIMS EMERGE DURING CRITICAL SENATE BATTLEThe ad’s post on X was widely mocked by Democrats and Republicans and has been viewed over 2 million times.”Maine is the oldest median age electorate in the nation,” Democratic strategist Steve Schale posted on X. “I know I’m not a DC strategist but I really, really don’t get it.””Troy Jackson needs to win but videos like this are unhelpful and cringey,” liberal influencer Harry Sisson posted on X. “Please change it up! No boba tea!””The same people that ran Mallory McMorrow’s campaign into the ground are telling you to do this goofy sh**,” left-wing podcaster Kyle Kulinski posted on X. “Just get out there and tell the truth and speak from the heart for economic justice and against war and stop with all this bullshit. C’mon man. You’re smarter than this.”DEM SENATE NOMINEE BREAKS SILENCE AFTER SUSAN COLLINS’ OFFICE WAS VANDALIZED WITH VULGAR MESSAGE”It’s a little bit funny to be desperately trying to position as working class masculine male and have gen-z women run your socials like they would run their own personals,” Republican communicator Matt Whitlock posted on X.”… ,” National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Southern Regional Press Secretary Reilly Richardson posted on X.” Weird,” GOP communicator Steve Guest posted on X. “Looks like the first time that Troy Jackson has ever had boba.””Boba tea! Just like regular people! ” Journalist Chris Cillizza posted on X.”Want to remind you that Democrats were openly proud of how masculine their Maine campaign was going to be and then they ran this ad,” former Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh posted on X.Fox News Digital reached out to Jackson’s campaign for comment.A recent poll indicates Collins is ahead of her Democratic challenger in a crucial Senate showdown in blue-leaning Maine that could determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.Collins, who is running for a sixth six-year term in the Senate, stands at 49% support among likely voters, with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, the Democratic nominee, at 46%, with 5% undecided in the New York Times/Siena poll. Collins’ three-point edge is within the survey’s margin of error.The survey, which was conducted Sept. 15–22, is one of the first to indicate Collins ahead of Jackson since he replaced former Senate nominee Graham Platner in late July.Platner, a combat veteran and oyster farmer, won the June Democratic Senate primary in a landslide. But a month later he dropped out following an explosive report containing an allegation of rape from a woman he previously dated. Platner denied the report but stepped aside. Collins slightly trailed Platner in most polling at the time he ended his campaign.Jackson, who campaigned alongside Platner earlier this year as he unsuccessfully ran for governor, won a special nominating convention to fill the party’s vacant Senate nomination.The poll release came as Collins pushed back against a report by ProPublica that the FBI sought to launch a pay-to-play investigation examining Collins and others. The investigation was later dropped and no one working for Collins was charged.Collins ripped the report as “offensive” and a “partisan hit job” orchestrated by Democrats.Jackson took to social media to claim that “Susan Collins is blatantly corrupt.”Collins’ advantage over Jackson in the new survey comes even as 55% of those questioned said they prefer Democrats to control the Senate next year, with 43% saying they’d like the GOP to retain the majority.Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Europe Races To Contain Energy Crisis With Patchwork Measures

Via Remix News,

European governments are racing to blunt a fuel shock that even some analysts now refuse to forecast, as Brent crude holds near $100 a barrel and diesel prices climb across Europe.

The international oil market has been expensive for months. What has changed is the confidence of the people paid to explain it. JPMorgan told clients on Sept. 17 that, for the first time since fighting began around Iran about seven months earlier, its commodities team no longer has a baseline view of how the disruption ends.

“We simply don’t know how to model the endgame,” the bank’s analysts wrote, after several economic thresholds they once assumed would force a diplomatic off-ramp, including oil above $100 a barrel, had already been crossed.

The bank said a Brent price near $90 would have been consistent with known supply and demand in September. Futures instead traded around $100 and higher as traders priced the risk of further losses that no one can yet measure. By Monday, front-month Brent was still hovering near $99 a barrel.

Inventories are doing little to cushion the blow. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said prices are likely to stay elevated until Middle East oil trade is restored and stocks can be rebuilt. The International Energy Agency’s September report put the scale of the drain in starker terms: observed global inventories fell another 95 million barrels in August, taking the cumulative draw since February to 507 million barrels, or about 2.8 million barrels a day. World oil supply is now projected to average 100.7 million barrels a day in 2026, down 5.7 million from a year earlier.

Diesel shortages are acute

In some countries, such as Hungary, there is a major imbalance in terms of available energy sources. Crude held in strategic storage remains ample, but diesel is quickly running out. Data from the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association show gas oil stocks at 520.3 kilotons at the end of January and about 390 kilotons at the end of both July and August. That thinner diesel cushion matters in a country where more than 1.3 million passenger cars run on the fuel and the regional market is competing for the same scarce imports.

Pump prices have already moved. Official and commercial trackers put Hungarian diesel around 701 forints a liter in late September on some official series and closer to 730 forints on daily station averages – well above the roughly 593 forints recorded at the end of June. The original worry in Budapest was not whether prices would rise, but how quickly 800 forints would stop looking like a distant ceiling.

That speed is not a mystery to central bankers. Bank of Slovenia research covering euro-area data from 2005 through 2026 found that a 10% rise in Brent lifts pretax diesel and gasoline prices by about 6.5% and 6.2%, respectively, over the longer term. A large share of the increase shows up at stations within the first two weeks – faster than the physical chain of shipping, refining and wholesale delivery would suggest.

The European Central Bank has reached a similar conclusion and added an unwelcome twist: refinery margins can amplify the shock. During the spring spike, Brent briefly reached $138 a barrel while diesel at the refinery gate jumped to $197. ECB staff later estimated that refining margins were contributing about 41 euro cents a liter to euro-area retail diesel in mid-September, and they told reporters those diesel margins may not peak until October.

The way down is slower than the way up. Taxes, refining and transport costs, inventories, margins and local competition all delay relief when crude finally eases. That asymmetry is why governments are acting now, before higher fuel bills work through freight, food and services and lift broader inflation.

Europe-wide crisis

The policy dilemma is the same from Lisbon to Warsaw: protect households and trucking firms without writing a blank check for fossil-fuel consumption. Europe has answered with a patchwork rather than a single rule. Some governments cap retail prices. Others cut excise taxes, sometimes below the European Union minimum. A third group aims help at farmers, haulers and other heavy users. A few still let global prices hit consumers with no cushion at all. The result is that the same barrel of oil can produce pump prices that differ dramatically at the pump across Europe.

Here are just a few examples of what Europe looks like in this regard.

Austria has been running a mineral-oil tax cut of 1.9 euro cents a liter into the end of September.
Belgium has implemented an official price ceiling.
Croatia cut diesel excise duty by another 3 cents, taking it 10 cents below the EU floor; Zagreb says the average diesel price is 1.91 euros a liter instead of 2.26 euros without the intervention.
Cyprus is offering an 8.33-cent discount through Nov. 30.
Luxembourg is absorbing 5 cents of the pump price from July through December.
Malta is using direct state aid to keep prices below the euro-area average.
Portugal decided on Sept. 17 to recycle extra value-added tax receipts from more expensive fuel into tax relief worth about 1.3 billion euros through year-end.
Slovenia posted official maxima of 1.748 euros for gasoline and 2.012 euros for diesel in the week of Sept. 22-28.
Spain has kept an excise cut below the EU minimum through Sept. 30.
Italy reduced and capped diesel duty into early October.
Montenegro and Serbia combine retail caps with lower excise taxes.
Targeted aid is running in parallel

Greece extended a 10-cent-a-liter diesel subsidy into October and is preparing a heating-oil package.
France steered relief to agriculture, high-mileage workers and construction rather than a blanket cut.
Ireland is rebating duty for commercial haulers and bus operators.
Spain added a 402 million-euro program for truckers on top of its general tax reduction.
Italy is offering carriers a tax credit for earlier extra costs.
Larger packages are still moving through parliaments

Germany will cut energy tax by 14 cents a liter from Oct. 1 through year-end, about 17 cents once lower VAT is counted, in a 2.5 billion-euro package.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said drivers who depend on a car every day “are reaching their breaking point.”

Berlin is also talking with the oil industry about a temporary price cap modeled on Luxembourg or Belgium, aimed at Jan. 1, 2027.

The Czech government will restore a station-margin ceiling from Oct. 1, cut diesel duty to the EU minimum and cap retail margins at 2.50 koruna a liter.

Poland has floated a 60% levy on oil companies’ extra profits to finance about 4 billion zlotys of price relief, though the plan faces parliamentary and constitutional hurdles.

The International Energy Agency has described the response as global, not merely European. In a matter of months, the number of countries applying fuel subsidies rose from 16 to 38, and the number cutting energy taxes rose from 40 to 57. Pew Research Center, drawing on IEA tallies from mid-June, counted 113 countries that had taken at least one energy-cost measure after the Iran war, including tax changes in 55 countries and fuel subsidies in 32. The agency’s own warning is implicit in those numbers: governments are treating the symptom at the pump because they cannot reopen the Strait of Hormuz from a finance ministry or end the war in Ukraine.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/30/2026 – 05:00

In 2011, our national debt was about $15 trillion, and the U.S. Treasury spent over $450 billion on interest. Washington was printing money it didn’t have, buying its way out of yet another financial crisis and sending brand-new, taxpayer-funded subsidies to health insurance companies through Obamacare. It was clear then that this massive level of spending was not sustainable.It was in this moment of explosive deficit spending that a new generation of conservative leaders—myself included—rode into Congress on a mandate from the American people to restore fiscal sanity and financial freedom. I left my medical practice to stand for public office because I would not let our children and grandchildren be bankrupted by reckless politicians.The fight for fiscal responsibility continues, and I plan to force a vote on my latest balanced budget proposal—the Six Penny Plan—later this year.GOP FISCAL HAWK SOUNDS ALARM ON ‘OUT OF CONTROL’ FEDERAL SPENDING, SAYING ‘BOTH PARTIES HAVE FAILED US’But I regret to inform you that Congress has completely lost the plot.The national debt has now surpassed $40 trillion. Congress now spends over $1 trillion on interest every year. Congress spends more on interest than on national defense. This enormous debt is contributing to rising interest rates and inflation, hurting every American. It’s a blinking red warning light—just as bright and red as the ink on our budget documents.Congress’ answer to this growing fiscal bomb? More of the same. Congress passed a continuing resolution earlier this summer to extend the status quo and will debate another extension before the end of this year.The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. When Congress takes up government funding later this year, it can pass my Six Penny Plan, which will balance the budget within five years.$50 TRILLION IN DEBT IS NOT A DISTANT THREAT. AMERICA IS SPEEDING TOWARDS ITNo one can say he or she supports a balanced budget while voting against the only balanced budget that came up for a vote. No more empty promises. No more excuses. No more games.The Six Penny Plan doesn’t prescribe any particular program or budget category to be cut—it even specifically exempts Social Security from cuts. The Six Penny Plan simply sets a maximum spending level. What Congress wants to do within that maximum is up for debate. This budget reflects the basic questions of priorities many Americans have confronted at different points in their lives, whether because of unexpected expenses or a loss of income: Which expenses can Congress keep, and which can Congress cut? Under the Six Penny Plan, Congress needs to find a six percent cut each year for five years. After that, once the budget is balanced, spending can increase based on the additional revenue from economic growth.WASHINGTON IS DRIVING AMERICA TOWARD A DEBT CRISIS WE CAN’T IGNORE ANY LONGERInterestingly, when I first proposed what became the Penny Plan in 2018, Congress would not have had to find any cuts, but merely work within a spending freeze for five years. Its inaction then is only making the job harder now.In subsequent years, it became the Penny Plan when it required a one percent cut, then it became the “Pennies Plan,” and today it is the Six Penny Plan because it requires us to find six pennies out of every dollar.CONGRESS SPENDS $7 TRILLION. HERE’S HOW THAT MATH WORKS OUT IF YOU THINK OF JUST $100Kicking the can down the road has been standard procedure in Congress for too long. Lawmakers have treated the debt like someone else’s problem, to be dealt with some other day in the future. Well, the future has arrived. Every year that Congress does nothing only adds fuel to the debt bomb and increases the risk of a bigger explosion down the road.It’s also time to call inaction on the debt what it is: a vote to increase the hidden inflation tax on everyone; a willful decision to let inflation wreak havoc on our cost of living. Inaction is unacceptable.CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONThe Six Penny Plan is the answer. The good news is that, when it was voted on in 2024 and 2025, the Six Penny Plan was supported by a majority of Senate Republicans. Because a budget resolution needs only a majority vote to pass, rather than a supermajority, Senate Republicans have the numbers to pass the Six Penny Plan.In other words, this is the moment. Support for the Six Penny Plan has been building, and there should be enough votes. Let’s show that conservatives mean what we say and can follow through on our promises to balance the budget. Let’s pass the Six Penny Plan.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN RAND PAUL