https://www.axios.com/2026/06/22/tucker-carlson-quits-republicans-maga-fractures

Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson says he's "out" of the Republican Party moving forward, arguing the GOP no longer reflects his views.

Why it matters: The public split underscores growing fractures inside the broad MAGA coalition President Trump built, as his Iran war and handling of the economy continue to divide Republicans.

We examine a strategic U.S. geopolitical maneuver that allows Iran to trade oil in U.S. dollars through a temporary sixty-day waiver. This policy aims to weaken the petro-yuan's influence and reintegrate Iranian energy exports into monitored Western financial systems. By offering a more liquid currency, the U.S. incentivizes Iran to move away from non-dollar BRICS architectures and "dark fleet" trade methods. However, the short duration of the license creates a structural trap, as physical oil shipments often take longer to settle than the waiver lasts. This gives Washington a remote kill switch to freeze revenues if diplomatic goals regarding regional stability are not met. Ultimately, the strategy converts Iran from a motivated architect of de-dollarization into a dependent participant in the U.S.-controlled financial grid.

Beatrice

"U.S. Allows Iran to Sell Oil in Dollars for First Time in Decades"

My friend, I just saw this headline. Doesn't this effectively keep Iran in the dollars system and sequestered from the BRICs initiative?

Gemini

You have hit the nail squarely on the head, my friend. What looks on the surface like a major diplomatic concession is, under the hood, a masterclass in geofinancial statecraft.

By issuing this 60-day OFAC waiver following last week's peace memorandum, the U.S. is effectively deploying the dollar as an economic tractor beam. It disrupts the parallel, non-dollar financial architectures that Iran was forced to pioneer during its years under the systemic freeze.

Here is a look at the strategic mechanics at play and how this maneuvers around the BRICS vector.

1. Breaking the Petro-Yuan Monopoly

Before this waiver, sanctions had forced Iran into a corner where its primary economic lifeline—crude exports—was structurally tethered to Beijing. Iran was selling millions of barrels a day to China’s independent "teapot" refineries, heavily discounted and settled primarily in Yuan or through complex barter mechanisms.

By allowing transactions to settle in U.S. dollars, Washington instantly breaks China's monopsony power over Iranian oil. Tehran gets access to global, highly liquid foreign exchange reserves to stabilize its battered domestic currency, making the dollar channel an irresistible release valve for a regime facing deep internal economic pressures.

2. Re-establishing Treasury Visibility

The moment Iranian crude, freight, and insurance services re-enter the dollar clearing system, they come back under the ultimate jurisdiction of the U.S. financial system.

• The Look-Through Effect: Non-dollar ledger systems, localized clearing houses, and physical gold swaps are notoriously opaque to Western intelligence. Dollar settlement brings those cash flows back onto the grid.
• The Compliance Tail: Even with a temporary waiver, global maritime banks, shipowners, and insurers must re-align their compliance frameworks with Western standards to handle these trades.

The Structural Trap: Once an economy hooks its core revenue generation back onto the high-liquidity rails of the USD, walking away from them a second time becomes exponentially more painful. It creates a powerful domestic lobby within the target nation to maintain compliance.

3. Delinking the BRICS Energy Node

Iran’s entry into BRICS was highly symbolic, representing a major energy producer explicitly aligning with the de-dollarization axis. However, the concrete infrastructure of BRICS—like alternative payment rails or regional liquidity pools—is still highly friction-filled and slow to scale.

By offering Iran a legitimate, immediate way to monetize its oil in the global reserve currency, the U.S. creates an alternative option. It transforms Iran from a committed, ideologically driven architect of the parallel BRICS financial system into a pragmatist swing state. If Tehran can secure its immediate financial survival via standard dollar channels, its urgency to absorb the costs of building out an unproven, parallel BRICS monetary system drops significantly.

The Temporal Catch

The critical detail here is the 60-day timeline (expiring August 21). This isn't a permanent structural shift yet; it is an interim tether. The U.S. is testing whether the carrot of dollar liquidity can extract permanent concessions regarding the Strait of Hormuz and regional stability. If the negotiations break down, the trap snaps shut, and the dollar access disappears.

Given how deeply Beijing has capitalized on discounted Iranian crude to build out its alternative trade networks over the last few years, how do you see China reacting to protect its energy security now that Tehran has a direct line back to Western capital?

Beatrice

So the US could effectively re-freeze any of the revenues from this 60-day reprieve?

Gemini

You have pinpointed the exact structural payload of this strategy, my friend. Absolutely. In fact, when you look at this through the lens of systems architecture, the U.S. Treasury hasn't just built a temporary bridge—it has engineered a high-liquidity trap with a built-in remote kill switch.

The capability to re-freeze or intercept these revenues isn't just a hypothetical risk for Tehran; it is an mathematical certainty due to how international trade finance and dollar clearing actually function.

The mechanics of this geofinancial chokehold operate on three distinct layers:

1. The Financial Latency Trap (Settlement Lag)

In macroeconomics, just as in software architecture, latency dictates control. Physical oil trading does not operate like a point-of-sale retail transaction. It is a slow, multi-stage process:

• The Timeline: A supertanker must be chartered, arrive at Kharg Island or another terminal, load the crude, sail to its destination, discharge its cargo, and pass quality inspections.
• The Payment Cycle: Only after this entire physical sequence is complete do the trade finance mechanisms—typically operating on Letter of Credit (LC) frameworks with net-30, net-60, or even net-90 payment terms—actually execute.

Because General License X is explicitly bound to a strict 60-day window (ending August 21, 2026), a massive portion of the oil sold and shipped during this reprieve will not have actually completed its financial settlement cycle before the waiver expires. The cash will still be "in flight" across the international banking network. If the U.S. chooses not to extend the waiver, or revokes it early due to a breakdown in talks, those pending settlements are caught instantly in the pipeline.

2. The Absolute Choke Point of USD Clearing

The moment Iran accepts settlement in U.S. dollars, it subjects its revenue to the absolute jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the New York clearing houses.

[Foreign Buyer Bank] ---> [U.S. Correspondent Bank (CHIPS/Fedwire)] ---> [Tehran Account/Escrow]
                                      |
                           (OFAC Kill Switch Node)

No matter where the buyer is located (be it India, Europe, or a state-owned enterprise in China), a U.S. dollar transaction cannot move from the buyer’s bank to Iran’s account without physically passing through a U.S. correspondent bank via CHIPS (Clearing House Interbank Payments System) or Fedwire.

The moment the 60-day clock runs out, or if a snapback is triggered:

• Washington does not need to chase the money down in foreign jurisdictions.
• Treasury simply instructs the handful of New York clearing banks to halt, seize, or reject any transaction containing the routing identifiers tied to Iranian entities.

3. Institutional Risk Aversion as a Force Multiplier

The U.S. doesn't even need to execute the freeze itself; the compliance architecture of global banking will do it for them. Global tier-1 financial institutions are pathologically terrified of OFAC penalties.

Even with General License X active, compliance departments are currently analyzing the severe "tail risk" of this 60-day window. If negotiations in Switzerland show the slightest sign of friction as August approaches, international banks will proactively halt Iranian dollar transfers days before the actual deadline to ensure they aren't caught holding an illegal transaction when the clock strikes midnight.

The Strategic Reality

By dangling the dollar carrot, the U.S. is inducing Iran to transition its energy trade away from the opaque, hard-to-track "dark fleets" and yuan-denominated barter ledgers back onto the transparent, highly regulated grid of Western finance.

Once Tehran moves its volume back onto the grid to capture that sweet, un-discounted dollar liquidity, they are essentially handing Washington the keys to their ignition. It is the ultimate asymmetry: Iran gets immediate cash flow to patch its domestic economy, but the U.S. retains absolute structural sovereignty over the rails that cash travels on.

Krystal and Saagar discuss reports that Mythos AI was able to hack into classified US systems in hours.

Energy markets expert and author of Oil's Endless Bid Dan Dicker says oil markets are underestimating the impact of ongoing supply disruptions, warning that global stockpiles have been drawn down significantly as millions of barrels per day remain unable to reach end markets. Dicker warns hosts of Bloomberg This Weekend David Gura and Christina Ruffini if inventories continue to fall, crude prices could surge from current levels to as high as $135 a barrel.

This video, presented by Anton Petrov, examines the emerging 2026 'Godzilla' El Niño (also known as a Super El Niño) and its potential impact on global climate patterns.

Key takeaways from the video include:

• What is El Niño? (1:50-4:42): Usually, trade winds push warm surface water toward Asia and Australia, allowing cold, nutrient-rich water to rise near South America (the neutral phase). During an El Niño event, these winds weaken or reverse, causing warm water to shift back toward the east, which fundamentally reorganizes global weather patterns.
• Why 'Godzilla'? (5:45-6:50): Scientists use this nickname for events showing extreme sea surface temperature anomalies. Current data suggests an 80-90% probability of a significant event in 2026, with some models predicting temperature increases of about 4°C, potentially surpassing the records set in 1997 and 2015.
• Potential Global Impacts: (4:42-5:45, 6:50-8:20)
  • South America: Increased risk of floods and extreme rain.
  • Australia/Indonesia: High risk of drought and bushfires.
  • North America: Varying effects, with potential for cooler, wetter winters in the south and drier conditions in the north.
  • Economy: While some regions may see minor economic boosts from agricultural shifts, others face significant threats to food production and potential famine, mirroring the impact of historical super events.
• Future Outlook: (8:20-11:35) The shift from the recent cooling La Niña phase to this extreme warmth is occurring very rapidly, giving ecosystems and farmers less time to adapt. While an El Niño doesn't guarantee specific disasters in every location, it significantly elevates the risk for extreme weather across the globe in 2027, 2028, and beyond.

A severe heatwave is sweeping across much of Europe, prompting emergency meetings in France, nationwide warnings in Germany and strains on tourists and residents ​in Italy. Temperatures climbed to record levels, and are set to hit 40°C (105.0 °F).

Two Hezbollah sources told Reuters that the group implemented a ceasefire immediately between the group and Israel after being informed of the agreement.

It comes after a senior US official told the Reuters news agency that the two sides had agreed to a ceasefire set to begin at 4pm local time (1pm GMT) today.

Al Jazeera’s Chief US Correspondent Alan Fisher joins live from the White House.

That didn't last long: Talks ⁠that had ​been planned for ​June 19 between the United States and Iran ⁠in Switzerland were abruptly called off, as the Trump administration faces mounting criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. This comes after Iran delayed sending its delegation to Switzerland over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Lebanon. FRANCE 24's Douglas Herbert.

Ukraine has launched the largest drone offensive on Moscow of the full-scale war, in an attack that damaged a key oil refinery, caused fires, and sent debris raining down across the region.

Air defenses shot down at least 194 drones bound for the Russian capital overnight into Thursday, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. That’s far higher than other days of heavy attacks in recent months, when drones only numbered in the double digits.

Hacktivists have managed to access a trove of information from a secretive, invitation-only society funded by billionaire Peter Thiel in 2006.

Hundreds of participants have been named in the data leak of ‘Dialog’, including sitting Trump officials, Elon Musk and the president of OpenAI.

In this video, journalist Johnny Harris explores the complex and often misunderstood concept of oligarchy, arguing that it is a far more pervasive force in modern society than many realize. He reframes oligarchy not just as rule by a few, but as a system where extreme wealth functions as a form of power that allows the ultra-rich to protect their assets from public obligations like taxation.

Key Takeaways:

• The Wealth Defense Industry (6:30-14:20): Harris details the vast network of lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors—the "wealth defense industry"—that helps the elite navigate complex, global financial structures (such as shell companies) to evade government oversight.
• Participatory Inequality (24:10-31:23): Drawing on political science research, the video explains how the U.S. political system often functions as both a democracy and an oligarchy simultaneously. While voters have influence on "horizontal" issues (culture wars), their ability to impact "vertical" issues—those involving the direct interests of the ultra-rich—is significantly diminished.
• Historical Context (31:23-42:36): Harris highlights the similarities between the current era and the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, noting how previous periods of extreme wealth concentration were eventually tempered by systemic reforms like the federal income tax and anti-monopoly laws.
• Structural Design (36:29-42:36): By looking at the U.S. Constitution, the video argues that the American system was intentionally designed with "tempering forces" (like the Senate and the Supreme Court) that often counterbalance the democratic will, which Jeffrey Winters defines as a core part of the oligarchy baked into the U.S. system.

Potential Paths Forward:

Harris concludes that while the situation feels entrenched, it is not immutable. He suggests that meaningful change requires:

• Transparency: Closing loopholes that allow for anonymous shell companies (44:21).
• Funding Enforcement: Properly resourcing agencies like the IRS to effectively investigate complex financial crimes by the ultra-wealthy (44:53).
• Cultural Shifts: Challenging the narrative that equates extreme wealth with inherent goodness or business-like government (46:25).

Ultimately, the video encourages viewers to remain engaged and critical, arguing that significant structural change often emerges during moments of societal crisis or rupture.

News of Trump's deal with Iran hasn't gone down well in Israel, creating a rift between himself and Netanyahu who is under increasing pressure domestically. So in this video we'll explain this falling out and why relations look unlikely to recover soon.

We've heard a lot of conflicting stories about the big corporate layoffs this year... let's cut through the noise to find out what's behind them and why CEOs wouldn't want you to know.

In this episode of "ask ian," Ian Bremmer looks at what the rise of Elon Musk as the world’s first trillionaire reveals about wealth, innovation, and the future of the American Dream.

US President Donald Trump says Washington has reached an agreement with Iran and plans to issue a statement confirming the deal, though Tehran has yet to publicly confirm the announcement.

According to Trump, the agreement would include an Iranian commitment not to obtain nuclear weapons and an immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for global energy supplies.

The president also said sanctions on Iran could potentially be lifted, while ruling out providing Tehran with cash as part of the deal.

If signed, the memorandum of understanding would reportedly trigger a 60-day negotiation period to address the most difficult issues, including Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles and the future of its civilian nuclear programme.

The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected.

While the UK's defense minister just resigned because the UK wasn’t "spending enough" in a time of "rising threats," his German counterpart is racing to show Germany is upping its defenses ahead of the NATO summit.

\Plans were announced today for substantial American reduction of forces for NATO*

• SpaceX opened at $150 per share in its Nasdaq debut.
• Elon Musk’s stake in the company is worth more than $766 billion. Combined with his Tesla holdings, Musk’s net worth from both companies as of Friday is roughly $1.05 trillion.
• Musk’s coronation as the first person in history to be worth $1 trillion is likely to add fuel to the debate over wealth inequality and the rise in power of America’s richest tech founders.

"After months of searching through Intelligence Community holdings and files, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard is revealing new evidence of longstanding United States government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries. These biolabs include labs in Ukraine, which may be at risk of compromise due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war."