Politics
Houthis Capture Mokha, Charge Americans $6 a Gallon As a Processing Fee
By Sean Vanity, . BSN Network. Satire.
Houthi rebels seized the Red Sea port city of Mokha this week, securing a key chokepoint on one of the world's busiest shipping corridors. By the time American truckers checked the pump, diesel had crossed $6 a gallon for the first time, setting a new record that nobody in Washington has explained, apologized for, or apparently noticed.
For context, Mokha is a port city in Yemen. Yemen is a country that has been described, by people whose job it is to describe countries, as "strategically important" for roughly twenty years, during which time nothing done there has worked out the way anyone planned. The Houthis have now added Mokha to a portfolio that already includes most of the country's coastline, several American drones they shot down for free, and the ongoing attention of the U.S. Navy, which has been parked in the Red Sea spending about $2 million a day doing something that has not visibly changed the situation.
Elon Musk, who owns a company that ships things and therefore has opinions about ports, posted on X that the situation was "deeply concerning for global logistics," followed seventeen minutes later by a post about a poll asking whether people preferred Mars or the Moon. His followers are still working through the implications.
The $6 number is the part that matters to the 3.5 million long-haul truckers currently filling tanks they cannot afford and delivering goods to stores whose prices already went up last quarter to cover the last time this happened. A driver named Randy Kowalski, reached at a Flying J outside of Amarillo, said he was paying $1,100 to fill his truck and had calculated that his next load, 42,000 pounds of frozen chicken thighs bound for a distribution center in Memphis, would net him approximately $190 after fuel. He described this as "not ideal."
The Department of Energy released a statement noting that diesel prices "reflect complex global supply dynamics" and encouraging consumers to "explore fuel-efficient alternatives," which is a sentence that has never once been read by a man driving a Kenworth T680 through the Texas panhandle at 3 a.m.
The White House press secretary was asked directly whether the administration had a plan for the Red Sea situation. She said the administration was "monitoring the situation closely and working with regional partners to ensure freedom of navigation," which is the geopolitical equivalent of saying you are thinking about going to the gym. Asked what regional partners specifically, she said "relevant stakeholders."
Meanwhile the Houthis, operating on a budget that is a rounding error compared to the U.S. defense expenditure responding to them, have now effectively set American diesel prices from a port city most Americans cannot spell. This is either a stunning failure of foreign policy or an absolutely unhinged logistics miracle, depending on which side of the pump you are standing on.
Randy Kowalski was asked if he had a message for anyone in particular. He said he had to go. The chicken wasn't going to move itself.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/iran-war-diesel-price-record-houthis-red-sea/