By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | June 21, 2026

As of the week ending June 12, 2026, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) held approximately 340.25 million barrels of crude oil… Sounds like a lot, but it is approaching the danger zone. In late May, that number was 372 million barrels, which consisted of Sweet crude: ~142 MMB | Sour crude: ~230 MMB, according to the US Department of Energy.

The oil is stored in caverns at four sites:

• Bryan Mound: ~166 MMB
• Big Hill: ~90 MMB
• West Hackberry: ~72 MMB
• Bayou Choctaw: ~44 MMB

To understand how perilous the situation is you need to know that if the oil level in these caverns falls below a certain level that the structural integrity of the caverns would be jeopardized. The most commonly cited operational floor is around 20% of capacity. Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, told CNN that the SPR must be at least 20% full to remain operational — that’s roughly 143 million barrels against the SPR’s ~727 million barrel design capacity.

So subtract 143 barrels from 340.25… That means the US only has 197.25 million barrels left before the caverns could face irreparable damage. If the US consumers, who use 20 million barrels a day, had to rely exclusively on the SPR, the US only has less than a 9-day supply of reserves. If you compare the amount reported at the end of May (i.e., 372 MMb) with the June 15th report, the US is drawing 16 million barrels a week from the reserve. This is the optimistic scenario, i.e., the US has roughly a 12-day supply before the proverbial shit hits the fan.

But wait, it gets worse. The US Military has blown through its jet fuel reserves. The problem is compounded becuase Diesel reserves are at 25 year low. Diesel and Jet Fuel are critical Distillates. So the Trump administration must make a choice: support the military jets with jet fuel, or support the trucking Fleet with enough diesel fuel, to provide food and products to US consumers. Trump can’t wage war and keep the economy going at the current rate because diesel and jet fuel compete with each other when comes to production. So the question is, do you want to wage war or do you wanna save the economy and keep the trucks moving on the road? This is the main reason Trump signed the MoU with Iran.

A friend who is an energy analyst summarized the dilemma as follows:

The strategic warning is that the United States cannot assume it can fight a major fuel-intensive conflict and protect the domestic economy without tradeoffs. Military jet fuel, commercial aviation fuel, diesel, heating oil, and marine fuel all draw from the middle distillate portion of the refined barrel. Refineries can bias output, but they cannot instantly maximize every middle-distillate product at once.

The risk is not that every truck or aircraft stops at once. The risk is that a forced fuel-priority decision creates cascading shortages and price shocks across logistics, aviation, agriculture, construction, and consumer supply chains. A war-time jet-fuel surge could reduce the diesel cushion; a civil-aviation diversion could disrupt passenger movement and air cargo. Either channel can become recessionary because both diesel and jet fuel are operating fuels for the real economy.

The US is not the only country or region facing a massive problem. Europe is screwed. An April 2026 report by Karl Miller — The Iran War, the Strait of Hormuz and Europe’s Compound Energy Trap — spells out the danger facing Europe. Here is the Executive Summary:

This report assesses whether the European Union faces a structural energy-security Prisoner’s Dilemma with Russia, with Germany at its centre and the Persian Gulf crisis as the accelerant. The argument is blunt: the Union has deprived itself of the low-cost Russian oil and gas system that underpinned much of its industrial base, while the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz disruption have simultaneously impaired the maritime energy system that supplies a decisive share of the world’s oil, refined products and LNG.

Europe is on its knees in strategic terms. It is not literally without emergency stocks, because EU and IEA rules require minimum oil inventories. The harder reality is more damaging: those inventories are finite, unevenly usable, commercially fragile and unable to replace the normal flow of crude, diesel, jet fuel, LPG, naphtha and LNG through global markets. Emergency stocks buy time; they do not restore cheap Russian pipeline gas, reopen Hormuz, rebuild refining flexibility or prevent member states from bidding against one another.

The EU therefore faces a compound trap. Russian gas is being removed by law, Persian Gulf flows are exposed to war, U.S. LNG has become indispensable but expensive, storage refill is costly, and Germany’s industrial model remains dependent on affordable dispatchable energy. Each member state can rationally protect itself through bilateral contracts, subsidies, exemptions and emergency procurement, yet those same choices weaken the Union’s collective bargaining power and deepen fragmentation.

The conclusion is that the EU is locked into a repeated, asymmetric collective-action game. Escaping it requires enforceable solidarity, shared critical-fuels planning, coordinated storage, firm-capacity realism, a diversified LNG portfolio, strategic petroleum-product management, and legal reforms that make cooperation faster and more profitable than national defection.

Aditya Shukla

US-Iran talks in Switzerland seems to hit a hurdle as Iranian delegation has left the venue in protest over threats by US President Donald Trump, reported Tasnim News Agency of Iran, citing sources.

Organisers and members of the US delegation had planned a handshake and joint photo session between the two sides before talks began but the Iranian delegation led by chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf refused to participate.

 Earlier today Trump had threatened to hit Tehran “very hard again”. Reminding Tehran of the attack last week, Trump threatened Iran to stop its proxies, or Hezbollah, in Lebanon, “from causing trouble”, else face more intense attacks.

Taking to Truth Social Trump wrote, “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

[…]

Via https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/iranian-delegation-leaves-peace-talk-venue-in-switzerland-over-threats-by-trump-report/ar-AA26cFZV

The venue of talks at the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/06/21/770853/Iran-US-talks-begin-in-Switzerland-with-Pakistan-and-Qatar-as-mediators-

Breitbart

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard used her last day in office to release a trove of evidence that Dr. Anthony Fauci – former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – lied to Congress and directed U.S. funding for gain-of-function research linked to Big Pharma’s pursuit of “universal vaccines,” all while influencing and manipulating the intelligence community to cover up his role in the coronavirus pandemic.

Gabbard, who is leaving her post to help her husband as he battles an “extremely rare” form of cancer, released a trove of documents on her last day in office showcasing what many have said for years: Fauci lied to cover up his own alleged wrongdoing.

The Trump administration is blowing the lid off the coverup completely, showcasing Fauci’s role in providing millions in U.S. taxpayer dollars to fund dangerous gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology – where that specific coronavirus is suspected to originate.

Gabbard said:

Today, on my final day as Director of National Intelligence, I’m releasing never before seen communications and documents that expose exactly how Fauci worked with politicized career leadership in the intelligence community to suppress the truth about his actions, the virus’s lab leak origins, and his role in directing U.S. funding for this dangerous research that caused immeasurable harm and countless lost lives.

Gabbard alleged that those documents clearly “expose Fauci’s direct role in influencing and manipulating IC assessments on COVID-19, and how Fauci lied to Congress in 2024 when, under oath, he denied knowledge of or participation in discussions with intelligence officials about viral research.”

Gabbard also revealed they have testimony from intelligence community whistleblowers “who reported retaliation for challenging the intelligence community’s manipulation of intelligence on the virus’s origins.”

Ultimately, Gabbard said Fauci was able to use his “close relationships” with the intelligence community to “shield him from scrutiny.” During that time, Fauci funded gain-of-function coronavirus research “linked to big pharma and their pursuit of universal vaccines worth trillions of dollars,” Gabbard explained.

She also said Fauci pressed the intelligence community to push the “natural” animal origin narrative of the virus to cover for himself, and he became “the nation’s pandemic pundit” where he was able to freely push his alleged lies and censorship of critics.

Gabbard said the documents show Fauci pushed a “fraudulent” paper and “blatantly lied to Congress during his 2024 testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, denying that he ever spoke to any intelligence agency about COVID.”

“The correspondence I’m releasing today directly contradicts his sworn testimony,” she said, “and we received statements from multiple whistleblowers revealing that the intelligence analysts who dared to challenge Dr. Fauci’s COVID origin conclusions faced threats of retaliation, marginalization, and many suffered career setbacks.”

“The COVID pandemic caused tremendous hardship and pain for millions of our fellow Americans and countless people around the world. Now, after years of lies and censorship and cover-ups, the American people deserve transparency, truth, and accountability,” Gabbard continued.

“The tactics that were used to hide the truth are straight from the deep state playbook,” she said, declaring that it is now time for the American people to have the truth. “Politicized, self-serving leaders like Dr. Fauci covered up their own wrongdoing and abuses of power, manipulated intelligence, lied to Congress, and undermined a duly elected president by restricting his access to the vital facts he needed to keep the country safe.

Via https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/06/19/he-lied-tulsi-gabbard-releases-evidence-fauci-directed-funding-risky-coronavirus-research-linked-big-pharma-pursuit-universal-vaccines/

Google Data Center in The Dalles, Oregon, in 2011. (Visitor7 /Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0)

By Alan MacLeod
MintPress News

New documents from U.S. government agencies such as the F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security show that Washington is preparing for widespread anti-A.I. riots, as the technology destroys communities and industries across the country.

Ironically, the Trump administration is already using invasive A.I. technology to identify and suppress what it calls anti-A.I. “extremists,” and in the process, sweeping the entire nation into its massive surveillance dragnet.

More than 1,000 pages of leaked documents reviewed by WIRED Magazine show that government agencies are anticipating a huge wave of domestic unrest in the coming years, as artificial intelligence upends American society. Automation-related job losses could shatter entire industries, while the building of gigantic data centers will remove water and electricity from public use, ramping up the price of what little remains.

As one report from the New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, [a division of the New York City Police Department], notes:

“The chaotic atmosphere that may result from emergent A.I. technology in the next five years may fuel large-scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City.”

An Environmental & Health Catastrophe 

Last year, the tech industry collectively spent around half a trillion dollars on the construction of new data centers. These buildings consume near insatiable amounts of energy and water. By 2030, they are expected to represent around 12 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption. One large data center consumes up to 5 million gallons of water per day — as much as a small city. It has been calculated that a single 100-word A.I. prompt to a chatbot like Claude or ChatGPT uses over half a liter of water, equivalent to one bottle.

When a data center moves into town, utility prices skyrocket. In this situation, wholesale electricity, for example, jumps by up to 267 percent. Ordinary Americans cannot compete with the likes of Amazon or Microsoft, and can be priced out of even the most basic necessities of life, causing widespread resentment.

Living near a data center can also be hazardous to human health. Thanks to the low-frequency noises they produce, residents often report chronic symptoms such as insomnia, vertigo and nausea. Worse still, to meet their enormous energy demands, data centers often rely on gas or diesel generators, which emit high levels of nitrogen oxides, fine particular matter and so-called “forever chemicals” into the air, further complicating the situation.

A.I. will also have a profound effect on employment. Goldman Sachs predicts that, over the next decade, 300 million jobs could be lost to A.I.-based automation. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI, has suggested that whole industries may be replaced by his product. “Entire classes of jobs will go away and not come back,” he confidently stated in 2019. Facing growing public anger, last month, he walked those statements back, assuring the public that there would be no “jobs apocalypse.”

But if these predictions are anything close to correct, it will cause massive economic disruption across America, and send towns and entire cities dependent on certain types of work into potentially permanent depressions. The latest news that Washington is preparing to treat this unrest as akin to terrorism should be of great concern to all Americans.

The Dark Side of AI

The public, as a whole, is highly skeptical of artificial intelligence. A recent poll found that only 5 percent trust AI a great deal, while 77 percent think it could pose a fundamental threat to humanity.

The U.S. national security state, however, has fully committed to AI, and is using it to mass surveil the public and to identify those not sufficiently supportive of the new technology.

In March, F.B.I. Director Kash Patel confirmed that the bureau is buying Americans’ personal online user data from brokers in order to track the public. The Department of Homeland Security has spent millions purchasing AI software that detects the sentiment and emotions of Americans’ online posts, and is using it to identify activists and other potential “threats.”

It has also sent subpoenas to Google, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord and other large social media apps demanding they share the personal information and identities of anonymous users who have criticized the actions of the Trump administration. Government officials confirmed to The New York Times that platforms have often complied with their requests.

AI giant Anthropic publicly pulled out of a deal with the U.S. Department of War to develop AI systems in “classified environments,” stating that they feared the technology would immediately be used to carry out mass domestic surveillance in the United States. “We cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” they said, explaining their decision. The company was immediately labeled a national security “supply chain risk” by the Trump administration, and the contract was fulfilled by OpenAI.

OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman is one of Trump’s most generous donors, having channeled $25 million to the president’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. He has also poured $50 million into Leading the Future, a bipartisan super PAC aimed at promoting pro-AI legislation in Washington, D.C., and defeating and silencing lawmakers who wish to curb the influence and power of the new industry.

It remains to be seen to what extent AI will actually become a revolutionary technology, but what is clear is that the U.S. government is preparing for major economic and social disruption in its wake. Instead of creating economic bailout plans and social welfare programs to help those negatively affected, however, it is preparing an authoritarian response, looking to crush dissent. What makes this future even more ironically dystopian is that, to do so, it is using the very AI that is triggering the problem in the first place.

[…]

Via https://consortiumnews.com/2026/06/18/us-govt-plans-to-crush-anti-ai-extremism/

LA burning photo by Jose Carlos Fajardo. Source.

by Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News

The news has picked up speed this week, from the Iran war as well as the Ukraine – Russia war, and there are various commentaries and theories being published every day as the news seems to be changing by the hour.

Israel appears to have no intention of leaving Lebanon or stopping the war there, and public meetings to sign the “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) to start a ceasefire and end the war with Iran have been canceled.

There continues to be speculation that Israel could be closer to implementing the “Sampson Option.” See: Is Israel Preparing Nuclear Bombs for Iran According to “The Samson Option”?

Yesterday, Pepe Escobar, Zulfiqar Ali, and Larry Johnson published a video stating that Israel was planning to assassinate members of the Iran negotiators when they arrived to sign the MoU, which prompted them to sign it digitally (source), and Vance canceled his trip to Switzerland earlier today.

There are also now renewed rumors circulating that there could be a false flag attack with massive casualities in the U.S. that would eclipse the number of Americans who died with the World Trade Towers destruction, and much of this is being fueled by an X post from Laura Loomer, a Trump supporter and hardcore MAGA propagandist. (See featured image of this article for screenshot.)

The target of this false flag event has been frequently discussed lately as the second tallest building in downtown Los Angeles, the U.S. Bank tower, owned by the Jewish Billionaire Larry Silverstein.

Silverstein is most known for his purchase of the World Trade Center twin towers in New York city in 2001, just months before they blew up in what was the largest false flag event on U.S. soil through today.

Silverstein and his wife were conveniently not present in the towers that morning, as well as other famous Zionists who should have been in the towers that day, such as Howard Lutnik, who has been utterly disgraced this year due to his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and his lies about their relationship, including under oath before Congress, that he did not know Epstein very well and never visited his island.

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2026/is-world-war-iii-about-to-break-out-talk-of-los-angeles-false-flag-attack-increases/