https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/14/donald-trump-strait-of-hormuz-fee-backtrack-00996551
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Trump backtracks on plan to charge 20 percent fee for ships traveling through Strait of Hormuz - POLITICO
The president added that the previously announced 20 percent fee will be replaced with trade and investment deals between Gulf states and the U.S. “Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Trump said...
Senate Dems block defense bill in protest of Iran war - POLITICO
The move is a blow to Republicans who had sought to deliver on Trump’s record-shattering defense budget ambitions — using a bill that is one of the few measures that reliably becomes law each year. But Democrats had long signaled that they won’t support the Pentagon legislation without guardrails on Trump, most notably on the Iran war...
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/14/senate-dems-block-defense-bill-protest-iran-war-00997134
The Bible Verse People Use to End Every Argument (Dan McClellan and Dan Beecher; Data Over Dogma podcast on YouTube)
This episode it's Twisted Scripture: Proverbs 3:5–6 — "trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding" — and the way it gets wielded to shut a conversation down.
We dig into the claim that you can only "really" understand the Bible if you read it with the Holy Spirit, why that's textbook special pleading, and how John Lennox's red Ferrari ends up parked in the same garage as Carl Sagan's invisible dragon.
Along the way: intuition versus reflective cognition, why every tradition reports the same spiritual "confirmation," and the difference between private faith and public claims.
Chapters:
Chapters:
0:00 Intro1:15 Twisted Scripture Begins1:50 Proverbs 3:5–63:05 "I Read With the Spirit"4:18 Special Pleading6:18 Slavery as the Test Case7:23 What the Commentary Says8:19 Hidden From the Wise9:19 Whose Spirit Is Right?10:03 Intuition vs. Reflection11:46 The Unreliable Brain14:24 The Problem of Qualia16:22 Lennox's Red Ferrari17:24 Sagan's Garage Dragon19:41 Feelings vs. Evidence20:28 Every Tradition Feels It23:47 The Thought-Stopping Cliché25:01 Private Faith, Public Claims27:10 "The Spirit Told Me"28:41 More Trump-Card Verses29:51 Data Over Dogma
Interview:
‘Too cute by half’: Senators brush off Trump’s suggestions for honoring Graham - POLITICO
…So when President Donald Trump suggested in a Truth Social post Monday that the Senate should pass a long-brewing crypto bill in “honor of Senator Lindsey Graham,” it struck a false note to many lawmakers…
In addition to the crypto bill, Trump stoked a competing suggestion — that the contentious GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act could be passed in Graham’s memory — by saying he had spoken to the senator about that legislation just hours before his death…
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/14/lindsey-graham-legacy-russia-sanctions-00995862
Sale of multimillion-dollar T rex skeleton is big headache for scientists
Brusatte said: “When we publish research, we need to make sure that research is repeatable, meaning that other scientists can check our data and results and verify our conclusions, or not. The only way for our research to be repeatable is if the dinosaur fossils we study are in a museum, where other scientists are guaranteed access to them.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/14/t-rex-skeleton-sothebys-auction-new-york-scientists
Several states are weighing new curbs on direct democracy : NPR
Republican lawmakers pushing for these changes say a simple majority threshold makes amending their state constitution too easy — and thus too frequent of an occurrence...
Nicolle exposes DELUSIONAL and accidental self-own by Trump and 'all of his BOOBS’
According to exclusive new reporting from MS NOW, "a new White House task force reviewing thousands of pages of classified intelligence and law enforcement documents for evidence of irregularities in U.S. elections is expected to begin releasing documents within weeks." Nicolle Wallace is joined by Laura Barrón-López, who broke this reporting, Miles Taylor, and John Brennan for analysis on Deadline White House.
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