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Tuesday, July 14, 2026

14: Hormuz

The stock market is on the verge of doing something that's never been observed in 155 years -- and it has worrisome ramifications for Wall Street

Suddenly, Hormuz is Less Crucial Than It Was Why? Because the real energy crunch is coming from the Russia/Ukraine war ........ And of course the overarching moral of this story is the immense folly and criminality of a war that has left America and the world in a much worse place than they would have been if Trump and his enablers had just left things alone — or, better yet, had preserved the pretty good deal Iran and Barack Obama had agreed to in 2015.

Trump says the US will take out Pickaxe Mountain in Iran "We're going to hit them very hard tonight and we're going to hit them hard tomorrow. And there's not a damn thing they can do about it," he said on the Hugh Hewitt Show.

Christian Bale explains why he daily drives a 2003 Toyota Tacoma despite being worth over $120M
Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott donated $26.3B in 5 years — yet she's richer now. The 'giving' math most people get wrong Beyond the numbers, Scott’s method is unusual. She operates through Yield Giving (5), the philanthropic platform she founded in 2022, and uses what’s known as trust-based philanthropy, a model the Chronicle of Philanthropy describes as providing unrestricted funding that nonprofits can spend as they see fit, with minimal application and reporting requirements (6).

Zelensky says the war’s next battlefield makes territory almost irrelevant — ‘It matters far less whose territory is larger’ “Russia is pummeling Ukraine with salvo after deadly salvo of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles; Ukraine is using ever more sophisticated and longer-range drones to drive Russia’s fleet away from Ukraine in the Black Sea, starve Russian-occupied Crimea and, most effectively, strike oil facilities and military installations deep inside Russia,” Schmemann writes............ “Long lines for gas in Moscow and black smoke billowing from a refinery in distant Omsk, and images of victims being pulled out of demolished apartment blocks in Kyiv tell the rest of the story.” ....... “If you stop the enemy on the battlefield, if you stop the war on land, and if you deny him dominance at sea … then the next battlefield becomes the sky,” the president said. “And frankly, in that contest it matters far less whose territory is larger.” ........ the Ukrainian president said that Ukraine needs 300 Patriot missiles for the winter, including 100 per month. ........ “Interceptors, and specifically Patriots, have replaced artillery shells as the indispensable weapon for Ukraine in what may well be the endgame of this war. ........... a “robot army” is changing ground warfare in the conflict. .............. “Battalions of ground robots — tracked and wheeled machines that deliver supplies, haul ammunition, evacuate the wounded, lay mines and, increasingly, hold land — now conduct thousands of missions every month........... That has made them an indispensable tool for Ukrainian infantrymen who spend monthslong rotations in buried bunkers hiding from flying drones,” the report said.

Newt Gingrich likens Iran strategy to Lincoln's 'Anaconda strategy' Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, likens President Trump's Iran strategy to Abraham Lincoln's Civil War 'Anaconda strategy.' He details how the U.S. is methodically applying pressure on Iran, noting that allies are increasingly frustrated with Iran's actions, not America's. This measured approach aims to achieve long-term foreign policy objectives.

WSJ exposes Trump’s 'unprecedented' state capitalism According to the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump has sought to fuse government with business and create a “state capitalism” that is “unprecedented” in recent history. Many commenters have suggested, however, that “this is not state capitalism” but “another ism MAGA is always yelling about.” ............ As the Journal explains, Trump played an instrumental role in Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to go into business with the microchip producer Intel, which was struggling after sitting out the early AI boom. Trump pushed Cook to hire Intel to manufacture some of Apple’s new device chips, and Intel has since shown a dramatic turnaround — a financial windfall that has benefited Trump personally, as he bought a “significant share” of Intel stock before its value shot up after the deal with Apple was announced last month. .................. “I think we found the communists,” posted HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Date. “Something something communism,” posted Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson. “Seems kind of socialist,” noted journalist Brahm Resnik. “State ownership,” came another response. “And he calls Mamdani a commie.” ........... A year ago, the CATO Institute wrote that Trump’s policies mirror the “populist authoritarian movement” spoken of by libertarian thinker Roy A Childs Jr. when in 1982 he warned that the New American Right was working to build a country that would be “hostile to free markets and committed to some form of managed economy. Forty-three years later, Donald Trump is president, and the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator describes his policies as ‘state capitalism,’ a ‘hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises.’” The Journal takes things even further, arguing that

Trump is “imitating the Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into the economy.”

.............. Another example came last week, when Trump announced the launch of his “Freedom Fuel Network,” which imposed price controls on a series of Philadelphia gas stations, prompting a slew of comparisons to the “ism” so vocally reviled by Trump. As one commenter said of the news, “I thought we were fighting against communism?”

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