Tuesday, July 14, 2026
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President Trump’s proposed 20% toll on commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz could generate nearly $200 billion annually in revenue — a windfall large enough to cover about half of the federal civilian payroll.
Trump announced the concept on Monday — after months of rejecting Iran’s plan for post-war tolls — in what could amount to a negotiating tactic.
Brandon Daniels, CEO of supply chain AI company Exiger, told The Post that the annual volume of international commerce in the strait was between $880 billion and $970 billion before the war.
Want to make banker money without stepping foot on Wall Street? Try plumbing for the New York City Housing Authority.
From July 2024 through June 2025, NYCHA plumber supervisor Jakub Markowski earned $465,000, including $332,000 for nearly 2,600 hours in overtime — more than the mayor and City Council speaker make combined.
While he collected these checks, Markowski also operated two private plumbing companies.
The Buildings Department is now investigating him.
As the city’s ascendant socialist left pushes for more housing in public or nonprofit hands, NYCHA’s history presents a sordid tale of dysfunction and corruption, with Markowski the latest apparent example.
Lest we forget, Shola Olatoye, NYCHA’s chairwoman under Mayor Bill de Blasio,
They Want You Dead (cont)
replies
Happy Bastille Day to our many French readers.(Snip)In the two centuries between the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval and the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox, six members of the House of Commons were murdered, all by Irish republicans. Since then, what Churchill called "the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone" have muted their quarrels somewhat, and yet political violence in a once peaceable kingdom has become more general, to the cheers of the crowd.
It’s a move obscene on so many levels: Members of the City Council are looking to vote themselves a fat pay hike.
Just days after they approved a gargantuan $126 billion city budget, they took up a measure to boost their salaries more than 18% retroactive to Jan. 1 — plus automatic 2% hikes every year thereafter.
The hikes would push members’ pay to $175,500, upper middle-class income territory and more than twice the city’s median income ($81,228).
So the move shows complete contempt for city voters, who the pols plainly think won’t notice, as well as for the City Charter, which sets out an entirely different procedure for upping their pay.
Actress and Filmmaker Justine Bateman
Writes EPIC Response to Shrieking, Angry
Rep. Rashida Tlaib replies
Writes EPIC Response to Shrieking, Angry
Rep. Rashida Tlaib replies
People all over the political spectrum are getting tired of the antics of people like Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Every time the woman speaks, it’s a fire and brimstone diatribe about the evils of America.
She doesn’t talk like a member of congress. She sounds more like the unhinged leader of an invading force, threatening to take down the very country she claims to represent. Everyone is sick of it.
Actress and filmmaker Justine Bateman is not a conservative. If anything, she is a centrist, yet even she has had it with this. You will want to read what she wrote in response to Tlaib.
Bateman was reacting to this video:
In 2024, 24% of births in the EU were to foreign-born mothers. This figure exceeds 30% in Germany, Belgium, Spain, Austria and others, and reaches 68% in Luxembourg. Within five to ten years, Luxembourg will cease to exist as a country furthering Western values.
Assimilation of immigrants has not taken place.... When one imports the Third World, one becomes the Third World.
Under the influence of green ideology and European policy commitments such as the Green Deal and carbon taxes, Europe has voluntarily sabotaged its energy markets.
In the coming years,
The Dutch town of Ter Apel has a population of just 10,000 and was just sabotaged by its own government. (snip) An American transsexual man who applied for asylum in the Netherlands due to “oppression in Trump’s America” has been placed in the infamous asylum center Ter Apel famous for Islamist extremists and knife violence.
He says he regrets his decision…“It’s scary. It’s legitimately scary. I decided that my mental health is degrading so substantially, being here, that I just need to get out,” the dude in a dress said.
The Mexican government is using lawyers to block ICE’s repatriation of migrant Mexicans back to Mexico, according to Reuters.
The news service reported:
Mexico has begun filing criminal complaints with state prosecutors in the United States over the deaths of its citizens in U.S. immigration custody and during enforcement operations, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Mexico’s government has also sent cease-and-desist letters to U.S. detention centers where Mexican nationals have died, the ministry added in a statement.
“I don’t think this situation appears acceptable to anyone,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Monday. “This is an issue for all Mexicans,” she said, portraying the legal intervention as a nationalist cause for Mexicans.
The United States has launched a government-wide campaign aimed at limiting the ability of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate or take action against American officials and military personnel.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, through the US State Department, announced the initiative on Monday, which includes plans for diplomatic pressure, possible sanctions and travel restrictions targeting ICC personnel and organisations linked to the court. The campaign, the Department added, will include efforts to persuade other countries to reject the ICC’s authority over American personnel, particularly nations that cooperate with the US military and law enforcement agencies or benefit from US security assistance.
President Trump announced on Tuesday that he would scrap his proposal yesterday for a 20 percent tolling fee on cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and would instead pursue trade and investment deals with Gulf states.
Trump made the pitch a day ago as part of efforts to unlock commercial shipping through the crucial waterway.
“Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time,
Saudi Arabia has opened a new front in the Iran war after bombing Sana’a airport in Yemen. The strike on Monday damaged the runway and prevented an Iranian airliner from landing in the Yemeni capital, which is controlled by the Houthis, a pro-Tehran proxy militia. The airport bombing was claimed by the internationally recognised Yemeni government, which is heavily backed by Riyadh. However, the Yemeni administration lacks a functioning air force and a Houthi spokesman accused Saudi Arabia of conducting the attack. Two US officials told Axios that Donald Trump gave Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia his support for the military action.
A conflict that was on cold storage for years has flared up again after Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen accused each other of launching attacks over the weekend. It has brought renewed attention to the role of Pakistan, which last year signed a mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia, and since expanded its military footprint in the Kingdom. It has led to speculation about whether Pakistan will join Riyadh in fighting the Houthis. On Sunday, the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of bombing Yemen's airport. The attack, which is believed to have Donald Trump's backing, was an attempt to prevent an Iranian flight from landing at the Sanaa airport,
A bipartisan push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent is heading for a chamber-wide vote after clearing a key House hurdle. The House Rules Committee on Monday teed up a floor vote on the Sunshine Protection Act, which would allow states to enact Daylight Saving Time year-round — with an option to opt out. The committee approved the rule in a 6-4 vote. The measure has the support of many coastal lawmakers and President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly urged Congress to make Daylight Saving Time permanent and end the twice-a-year ritual of changing clocks
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are being instructed to end "most" vehicle stops nationwide in a major policy shift, effective immediately. According to multiple federal sources, ICE agents will cease making traffic stops, which have played a significant role in the agency’s operations until now. A federal source told Fox News that ICE will continue conducting vehicle stops only for those considered to be the most egregious targets with serious or violent criminal histories.
This comes after two people were killed in ICE officer-involved shootings in Maine and Texas in the last week.
A senior ICE source remarked to Fox News that the change is "horrible but needs to happen."
Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett recounted the threats against her life after the leak of the Dobbs decision during a Tuesday hearing.
The Supreme Court asked Congress to provide an additional $14.6 million for security in the fiscal year 2027 Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) funding bill. During a House Appropriations FSGG Committee hearing, Barrett described being sent home in a bullet proof vest after the decision in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization was leaked in May 2022.
“They have required me [and] my children to think about and see things that children should not have to see or think about,” Barrett said. “One example is when
For all the endless talk about “draconian” cuts, federal spending is running $172 billion ahead of last year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released Monday. And that includes a substantial increase in fraud-riddled Medicaid spending.
And spending continues to outpace increases in revenues, which means the deficit this year is now on track to top $2 trillion. The last time that happened was in the middle of the COVID-19 spending splurge.
To be sure, it’s not all bad news.
Consumer prices fell sharply in June thanks to relief at the gas pump and a broad decline in inflation.
The consumer price index fell 0.4 percent last month compared with May, the Department of Labor said Tuesday. This is the largest decline since 2020. Compared with a year ago, prices are 3.5 percent higher.
Economists had forecast a 0.1 percent monthly decline after May’s sharp 0.5 percent increase. The inflation index was expected to climb 3.8 percent from a year earlier, a slowdown in annual inflation from May’s 4.2 percent.
Core prices, a measure that excludes food and energy, were flat compared with the prior month.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have taken over the Democratic Party, and the only fundamental difference between the DSA and other Democrats is the DSA is willing to say out loud the things other Democrats keep to themselves. Yes, there have been some socialists before. Bernie Sanders hasn't exactly hidden his agenda in the 36 years he's been in Congress, but this new generation of socialists is far more vocal, far more radical, and far more dangerous. Just yesterday, self-described Democratic Socialist Rashida Tlaib said the socialists are going to dismantle this country, which was 'built on slavery, and genocide, and rape, and oppression.'
Abdul El-Sayed's father-in-law, a top donor to a super PAC supporting the left-wing Michigan Senate hopeful, is among the top leaders of an Islamic organization identified by the federal government as a public facing group for the Muslim Brotherhood, a Washington Free Beacon review found. As part of his role with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the federal government linked to the financing of Hamas, Tayeb Jukaku contributes at least $5,000 to the organization annually.
Jukaku has served on the 20-member founding committee of ISNA since at least 2007, according to the organization's magazine, Islamic Horizons, and has been a member of the group for a "long time,
What Khanna Can Do
replies
The New York Post has published an unsparing editorial calling out Rep. Ro Khanna for the patently manufactured incident he conducted in order to defame Israel:
Rep. Ro Khanna’s latest showboating stunt is too much even for other Democratic electeds — not only a transparent ploy to get past his all-in bet on the Graham Platner campaign, but a transparently pathetic bid to play victim of those darn Israelis.
Just days after his scorched-earth defense of the Maine Senate candidate failed to stop the implosion, Khanna (D-Calif.) rushed off to the Middle East to change his storyline.
He headed to the West Bank, intentionally directing his entourage into a restricted zone, then pretended
It’s a move obscene on so many levels: Members of the City Council are looking to vote themselves a fat pay hike.
Just days after they approved a gargantuan $126 billion city budget, they took up a measure to boost their salaries more than 18% retroactive to Jan. 1 — plus automatic 2% hikes every year thereafter.
The hikes would push members’ pay to $175,500, upper middle-class income territory and more than twice the city’s median income ($81,228).
So the move shows complete contempt for city voters, who the pols plainly think won’t notice, as well as for the City Charter, which sets out an entirely different procedure for upping their pay.
A top conservative legislator in the U.S. House of Representatives is pushing a bill to require hospitals to report the immigration status of Social Security recipients after allegations of illegal immigrants and unlawful residents have risen in recent years.
The Illegal Alien Reporting Act, introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, would “amend title XI of the Social Security Act to require hospitals participating in Federal health care programs to report certain information related to immigration status.” “For too long, Washington has ignored the financial impact that illegal immigration has on our nation’s health care system,” Roy told the Daily Signal.
If you look at George W. Bush, people—his reputation has gone up a little bit because he broke with [Donald] Trump, the next Republican. I’m not sure he voted for Trump, and he made his peace with [Barack] Obama.
There were three things that people fault Bush for. I’m not sure he was responsible. No. 1 was the Iraq War. No. 2 was the Afghan War. No. 3 was the 2008 financial meltdown. I think he was the most conservative Republican president that we have had since forever.
He was much more conservative than his father, George H.W. Bush. He tried to do a lot of things.
For all the endless talk about “draconian” cuts, federal spending is running $172 billion ahead of last year, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released Monday. And that includes a substantial increase in fraud-riddled Medicaid spending.
And spending continues to outpace increases in revenues, which means the deficit this year is now on track to top $2 trillion. The last time that happened was in the middle of the COVID-19 spending splurge.
To be sure, it’s not all bad news. Income and payroll taxes are running 6% ahead of last year, suggesting that – despite the doomsaying by Democrats and the media – the economy is creating more and better-paying jobs.